


If there were only joy in the world

by WhimsicalEthnographies



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Anal Sex, BAMF John, Bottom Sherlock, Character Death, First Time, I know it won't be canon compliant in 7 months but i don't care so suck it, John Watson is a Saint, Johnlock - Freeform, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, Minor drug references, POV Alternating, Post TAB, Rimming, Slow Burn, Top John, character injury, making it up as they go along, mary is BAD, not a case fic, not the babies, porn in Ch 7, they both know they just gotta get there, they just gotta get back to each other, they're in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-06-08 15:04:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6859873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhimsicalEthnographies/pseuds/WhimsicalEthnographies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The plane turned around.  </p><p>But God, they're still stuck in such a mess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Samosas and a cigarette

**Author's Note:**

> _We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world._
> 
>  
> 
> ~Helen Keller

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sherlock, I want to come home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John POV

_We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world._

~Helen Keller

 

_He’s in the shower. They’re in Baker Street, he’s not going away, he’s not dying from an overdose, he’s right there in the loo, in the shower. He’s in the shower. He’s fine. We’re fine._

The mantra plays over and over in John’s head, until he has to put the kettle down and grip the edge of the sink to stop the shaking in his hands.

John doesn’t know where Sherlock got the pills, or how many he actually took. He doesn’t know why, exactly, but he does have an idea and it’s not doing anything to soothe his shattered nerves. John does know that Sherlock threw them up, most likely forcing himself to vomit as soon as he received Mycroft’s call. He saw the small, folded paper bag under Sherlock’s seat--despite what he thinks, John is not an idiot--and any doctor worth his salt can smell vomit anywhere within a ten-metre radius.

He’s fairly sure Mycroft knows as well. John had been surprised when the tinted car headed straight for Baker Street, instead of the nearest hospital. 

_“I don’t think it wise to contact authorities just yet, and I’m fairly confident Sherlock will be fine with supervision. I trust you’ll watch him tonight, John?” Mycroft had given him a pointed look. John could feel the heat of Mary’s glare from next to him. On his other side, Sherlock was staring blankly out the window, either lost in his mind or in a lingering opioid stupor._

Then they’d been dropped at Baker Street, with Mycroft assuring John that he’d both see Mary safely back to their flat and be in contact. And that was that. _Look after him. Please_

Sherlock only stumbled once on the trip up the stairs, and while largely silent was still lucid enough to grumble and stomp when John ordered him into the shower. He absolutely will be fine--no slowed respirations, pupil response normal and equal, sweaty skin but not clammy--but John knows the impending come down will be miserable.

But he’s here. He’s not gone. John exhales hard and forces himself to pick the kettle back up. “He’s right there,” he says to the empty kitchen of his former home, flicking on the faucet then setting the kettle to boil. Tea. John needs tea. Sherlock is going to drink tea, and eat food, even if John has to pry his mouth open with a tyre iron and cram it in. Then...God, John doesn’t know what then. 

He jumps when he hears the loo door open. Sherlock steps out on a cloud of steam, padding barefoot and damp in pyjamas and his blue dressing gown with the bullet hole into the sitting room. John is shocked; he expected Sherlock to hole himself up in his bedroom, for it to be a fight to have even the barest conversation. Although to be fair, John isn’t entirely sure how to go about this conversation without it somehow devolving into a fight. He has no clue how to even start the sodding thing. 

He looks up from the steeping tea to watch as Sherlock lowers himself to the sofa, perhaps a bit less gracefully than he usually does. Did. When John was here to watch him flounce into the sitting room for a nice sulk on the sofa. He looks down at the mugs in front of him, the glass of milk he snagged from Mrs. Hudson when Sherlock first retreated to the bathroom (“Later, Mrs. Hudson. But he’s back, for good, I hope). For a moment, the briefest of moments, it’s like he never left, like the past three years never happened, and that if he walked into the sitting room Sherlock would accept his tea with a wave of his hand then proceed to insult whatever John put on the telly for the rest of the night.

How many times did that happen? How many times did John steep tea for Sherlock, then announce he’s eating what John orders for dinner, whether he likes it or not? How many times did Sherlock ignore John’s admonitions to shut up, if he didn’t like the show he was watching, he could go think in his room? How many times were nights interrupted with a text from Lestrade, summoning Sherlock, and by default John, to a gruesome crime scene or the Yard because his team was hopelessly out of their depth? And how many times did that not happen, did they sit in companionable silence, and while Sherlock announced how bored he was and how hateful the world was, neither of them felt any real urge to change it?

He misses it. John misses being home, and knowing now how close it was, again, how he was sure he’d lost this, again, how Sherlock somehow gave him another miracle, _again_ , and God, now they’re here and yes, everything is a mess, and Sherlock is probably going to be miserably ill for the rest of the night, and there is danger looming over every aspect of their lives, but Goddammit, they’re here. John doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry or rage or even vomit in relief.

But for now, tea.

John stirs too much sugar into Sherlock’s tea, followed by a splash of Mrs. Hudson’s milk into both his old cracked RAMC mug and Sherlock’s _Apis_ mug, then picks up both and steels himself. He has the distinct feeling something is going to shift irreparably tonight, for better or worse.

Sherlock is lying on the sofa, one arm thrown over his eyes, the other crossed rather defensively across his belly. John sets Sherlock’s mug down on the table, then sits down himself, the old wood creaking under his weight. He balances his mug on his knee. Sherlock doesn’t acknowledge him.

“Tea, Sherlock.” John says pointedly.

“I’d prefer a cigarette, John.” He doesn’t look at him, but at least he answers. His voice sounds a bit raw, and John wonders if he forced himself to vomit again in the bathroom.

“I’m sure you do. Could you drink some tea, first, Sherlock?”

Sherlock doesn’t reach for the tea, doesn’t answer. Well. John sighs, takes a sip of his own tea. Tea always tastes better out of this mug, in Baker Street. One of the first things he did after Sherlock’s return--and he’d resumed talking to him--was bring his mug back to the flat. It belonged here.

“Sherlock,” John says again after a few moments of silence. Sherlock sighs, a long, overly dramatic, very put-out sigh. John narrows his eyes, but the corner of his mouth tugs up a bit. Despite the gravity of the situation, he’d missed their little tête-à-têtes. It’s _almost_ normal. “William.”

“Why are you still here, John?” Sherlock resolutely doesn’t move.

“Because where else would I be?” 

“Home, perhaps, with your pregnant wife.” John bristles a bit at the way Sherlock says _home._

“Being here is more important. And thankfully, you’re brother agrees and made that clear in the car.” He doesn’t say it outloud, doesn’t say, _thankfully, before Mary could intervene._ “I know you threw them up, Sherlock. Thank God you still had enough wits about you to do that.”

“Bravo, John. Ever the competent doctor.”

“Are you still high?”

“Not especially. Unfortunately.”

“Good. You need to drink something. And eat something.”

“Mmmmm.”

“Sherlock, please.” No answer. “I’m not going away, Sherlock.”

“Suit yourself.”

“Are you going to tell me where you got them?” John takes another sip of his tea.

“No. It doesn’t matter.” Sherlock shifts a bit on the couch, as if he is decidedly uncomfortable in the position he is in. He does not look at John at all. “Moriarty matters, now.”

“Not much, to me. Not right now.” John tries a different tactic. “Why’d you take them, Sherlock?”

“Why?” Sherlock sneers, (finally) pulling his arm away from his eyes to squint at John. The afternoon light in the sitting room is low, the sky overcast, but he’s still looking at John as if he can’t quite see him clearly. His eyes are also rimmed red, but not quite the bloodshot look of an opioid comedown. 

“Yes, Sherlock. Why? Why?” John sets his tea on the coffee table behind him and leans forward onto his knees. He looks directly into Sherlock’s squinty, red-rimmed eyes. “Why, Sherlock? Why would you do that? To your brother? To me?”

Sherlock rolls his eyes and looks up at the cracked ceiling. “Why not? I wasn’t coming back. Seemed fitting.”

“You don’t know that.” John suspected it, himself. It’s still feels like a punch to the gut, like all the air was pulled from his lungs to hear it, outloud. Sherlock’s resignation admitting it is like an icy, closed fist squeezing around John’s heart. “You didn’t know that.”

“Yes, I did. Mycroft is never wrong. Six months. The mission was designed to be fatal, it would only be successful if fatal. I’d have been lucky to have lasted six months.” He shrugs, nonchalantly.

Unresolved grief and fear flare in John’s gut, and he doesn’t push it down, not like he usually does. It’s a dangerous feeling, and for once, Sherlock’s nonchalance--an act, it _has_ to be an act--draws him to a tipping point he may very well allow himself to fall over. John takes a breath to steady his voice. “Sherlock, do you really think your brother would have let you die out there? That _I_ would have let him let you die out there?”

“And why would I think otherwise, John?” Sherlock’s head snaps up. His voice quivers, just a bit. “Why in God’s name would I think to allow for that possibility?”

John sniffs. Sherlock’s eyes are still fuzzy, but John sees all the pretense of control from the plane and the car ride start to slip away. His face looks pale, eyes watery and red and glazed, lips trembling slightly. But his glare cuts John to the core, just like it always has. He can’t bare to glare back, and he knows, this is going to be it. For better or for worse, and he cannot allow his temper to ruin it, even if he’s starting to want to strangle Sherlock. He takes another deep breath.

“You promised you’d be there, Sherlock,” John looks at a scratch on the coffee table. His left hand curls around the edge of the table in an effort to keep it from shaking. “You said--”

“Yes, I did. And I did what I had to give you what you wanted, which was all I could do.. I don’t know how you can expect more from me than that. It was a dead end, John. I fixed the problem. I’m sorry it didn’t live up to your expectations.” Sherlock tugs his dressing gown more tightly around his shaky frame--he’s going to start to come down soon, for real--and shifts on the sofa. “You can go home now. I’m sure Mary isn’t happy Mycroft insisted you come here.” In one smooth motion he flips on the sofa, facing the back cushions and curling on himself.

John knows, he just knows, somehow, that Sherlock’s dismissal is a cover for resignation. And looking at Sherlock’s too thin, silk covered back, curled in on himself after an aborted suicide mission and looking forward to what is sure to be a pretty epic crash, the fact that they are at least here, even with all the shit, they’re here, together, rushes over him like a crashing wave. Suddenly he’s so tired, just so tired of it all, so tired of balancing on the edge of that precipice he’s been pushed to so many times, over the years _before_ , in the year since he’s been back, in the months since John’s _wife_ shot and essentially killed him, and John knows there’s really only one thing he can do.

He let’s himself fall.

“Sherlock,” the words come out so much more harshly than John wants, than he’d want Sherlock to hear. “Sherlock, I want to come home.”

He doesn’t answer, but John hears a small, sharp intake of breath from the bony lump of silk on the sofa.

“I’m so tired, Sherlock. I’m so fucking tired,” John’s heart thunders in his ears. “All I want to do is come home. But I can’t right now, and I did _not_ go back _there_ so you could get yourself killed again, or throw your life away again. I can’t do it again, Sherlock. And I won’t. I will not go through that again. And I have no fucking--” his voice catches, a bit--“I have no fucking idea how I’m going to do this, or figure this out, but I really, really need you to put even the tiniest bit of effort into making sure you’re still here when I do.”

John exhales on a gust when he’s finished, feeling both as if the world has been lifted from his shoulders and as if it might suddenly come crashing down around him. He waits a beat. Two. Three. “Now,” John sniffs, “please, drink some tea, Sherlock.”

To his surprise, Sherlock slowly turns over. John is looking at his hands, now clasped tightly between his knees--he wants to clench his fist so badly--but he flits a quick glance at Sherlock’s face. He’s looking at John as if he’s never seen him before, the perplexed crinkle between his brows. “Three sugars?” He says finally, eyes still on John’s downturned face.

“Yes,” John looks up at him. He forces himself to hold his gaze as Sherlock continues to scrutinize him.

“The milk can’t possibly be good.”

“It wasn’t. I got some from Mrs. Hudson.” John continues to look back, directly into those eyes that somehow continue to be piercing even through a haze, the eyes whose color John was terrified of forgetting in the two years Sherlock was gone, the ones he thought about that first night after he returned, the ones he couldn’t believe he’d seen again while his knuckles ached from where they hit Sherlock’s mouth.

Sherlock watches him for a moment longer, then blinks slowly. He gingerly turns and pushes his himself up to sitting, swinging his long legs down the floor. He opens his eyes and looks at the _Apis_ mug on the coffee table next to John. “It’ll be cold.”

John huffs out a wet laugh. “Probably. Shall I brew more?”

“Please.”

“Alright,” John reaches out and squeezes Sherlock’s bony knee. Sherlock looks back up at him as he rubs a bit, his face almost soft, and open, and maybe a little bit afraid. His arms are twitching slightly at his sides, fingers digging into the leather cushion of the sofa, and John laughs for real this time, because for the first time he is pretty sure he knows exactly what Sherlock wants to do. “Jesus Christ, Sherlock.” He takes ahold of the sleeve of Sherlock’s dressing gown. It’s cool and slippery under his fingers. “Come here.”

Sherlock falls forward so easily when John tugs his sleeve, his face falling against the crook where John’s neck meets his shoulder, his long fingers grabbing at the front of John’s jumper. When John’s arms come up around his shoulders, they begin to shake, Sherlock’s entire frame violently trembling against John.

“Hey, hey,” John croons, shifting forward on the table as he pulls Sherlock closer. Sherlock slides completely off the sofa, knees hitting the floor as John gathers him as close as the can.

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock exhales, his breath warm down the front of John’s button down.

“I know.”

“I was scared.”

“I know,” John presses his nose into Sherlock’s curls, damp and a mess, and inhales. “I was too, Sherlock.” He rubs his left hand up and down Sherlock’s spine--the urge to clench is significantly reduced--and his right comes up to hold Sherlock’s neck. The skin is soft under his fingers, the curls at his nape winding their way between his knuckles. He presses a hard kiss to the top of Sherlock’s head. “God, please tell me you weren’t lying when you said you knew exactly what he was going to do next.”

“‘She,’ John.”

“Ok. Yeah. I figured,” John tightens his grip. “So, what exactly is that?”

“Nothing,” Sherlock shifts a bit, and John would swear an oath that Sherlock is actually nuzzling against him. Which is fine. More than fine. “She thinks she’s won. So for now, nothing.”

“Ok,” John lays his cheek on Sherlock’s curls. “So we have time.”

“For now. There are some fairly critical variables we need to work through...your daughter being priority.”

John hesitates, just a moment. “Sherlock…”

“I know, John.” Sherlock cuts him off. “When I’m sure, I’ll tell you. But right now we have to err on the side of caution and plan for all possibilities.”

“Alright,” John twists one soft ringlet around his finger. “And while we do this, I need you to look out for yourself, Sherlock. No more half-baked attempts at martyrdom, alright?”

“John…”

“I mean it, Sherlock. We do this together, and we get through this together. Please. There’s no point in getting out of there if you won’t be here at the end of it.”

“She’s going to try to kill me again, John. Perhaps even you, eventually. I definitely worked that out.”

“Yeah, I figured.” John kisses the top of Sherlock’s head again. “I won’t let her.”

“No,” Sherlock breathes, and John thinks he hears a touch of wonder in his voice. “I know you won’t.” His arms tighten around John’s back and they sit for a few moments, wrapped together, clinging to something new, and fragile, but also something John has to trust is strong enough to get them through. This, even just the start of the truth, is something to get them through. It’s more than something, it’s everything. And John would like nothing more than to just stay here, just like this would be fine, it would be more than fine, but he knows it’s not possible. Sherlock’s stomach rumbles against him, a reminder of the stark reality they’re facing.

“How are you feeling?” He murmurs against Sherlock’s curly head.

“Like shit,” Sherlock rarely curses, so John finds it amusing. 

“You’re going to,” John rocks him, just a bit. “So I’m going to make some more tea that you are going to drink. And then I’m going to order some take-away, which you will eat, and then you’re going to get some rest. I have some leftover lorazepam in the lock-box if you need it.”

“Will you stay?”

“Yes. I have to go back tomorrow, though. I think Mycroft only bought us overnight, for now.”

“Yes, it wouldn’t be wise to be careless now.”

“Exactly. So even when I’m gone, you are going to eat and sleep and take care of yourself and keep me in the loop of everything. Do you understand me, Sherlock?”

John honestly expects a bit of a fight, because that’s Sherlock after all, and is surprised when Sherlock sighs--seemingly in relief--against his neck and nods. “Yes, John.”

“Promise.” It’s not a request.

“I promise, John.”

“Good,” John strokes through Sherlock’s hair once. Twice. “Your knees must be hurting.”

“I’m fine.”

“Mmmm, nice try. I need to make more tea and call for food. What do you want?”

“Samosas. And a cigarette.”

“Mmm...carbs and oil. And one, out the window.”

“Two.”

John sighs. “You’re a dickhead. Come on, up you get,” John reluctantly unwinds his arm from around Sherlock and pulls back. He looks at his face a moment, gently brushing frizzy curls off his forehead. Sherlock smiles softly, just a quirk of his lips, looking at John’s face through his eyelashes. He leans forward and presses his forehead against Sherlock’s. “ _Only_ two.”

Sherlock’s smile widens, grinning impishly, looking very much like the cat that ate the canary, and John is once again filled with that long buried feeling that there is absolutely nothing he’d deny this impossible man. He hasn’t felt this way in years, and it’s warm, a bright light through the dark impending doom on the horizon.

“Come on, dickhead. Tea and food,” he takes Sherlock’s elbows as he stands off the coffee table, helping him off the hard floor. Sherlock winces as he stands, wobbly on stiff legs and shaking, just slightly. John rubs his biceps lightly, then reluctantly steps away and around the coffee table, watching as Sherlock carefully makes his way over to the fireplace and the Persian slipper stuffed with cigarettes stashed there.

“Hrmph,” he sniffs as he stands up straight, listing to the side just slightly. “They’re stale.”

John chuckles. “That’s what you get. Do not let any smoke blow back in here.”

“Yes, John,” Sherlock rolls his eyes and drawls, as if he could not be clearer that he doesn’t care about smoke getting back into the flat.

And honestly, John doesn’t care either. It’s fine, especially tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Corrections provided by [thejohnwatson](http://thejohnhwatson.tumblr.com//). Thank you for picking up my slack, dear!
> 
>  
> 
> Also, SHAMELESS PROMOTION: follow me on tumblr if you are so inclined. [whimsicalethnographies](http://whimsicalethnographies.tumblr.com/)


	2. Cheap laundry detergent and whatever-shampoo-was-on-sale-at-Tesco

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I take it a line was finally crossed with Dr. Watson, last night.”
> 
> "No."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock POV

Sherlock wakes, the light through the sitting room curtains blinding and sharp. His head pounds and his stomach roils; the air tastes sharp and heavy, like sulfur. He is entirely too hot, and shrugs off the blanket John tucked him under before he left earlier. Everything hurts. Everything started hurting the night before, but it was better, because John was with him. Everything is better when John is near.

A single tap on the rug in front of the fireplace alerts him that he’s not alone in the room.

“What the fuck do you want, Mycroft?”

“Perhaps for the first time, little brother, the same thing you do.”

“And, _what_ is that?” Sherlock pushes himself up, every joint in his body--not to mention his stomach and head--protesting. He opens his eyes as much as he dares in a vain effort to glare at his brother. Mycroft is sitting in Sherlock’s worn leather chair, looking as imperious as ever, and raises his eyebrows. “And why are you in my chair?”

“Because, dear Sherlock, I made a deduction that perhaps you wouldn’t appreciate anyone sitting in Dr. Watson’s chair.” His eyebrows come down and his face takes on a look of disgust. Or perhaps not disgust, but at the very least disapproval. “This is will make everything much more difficult.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sherlock shut his eyes and slumped back into his pillows on the sofa. Bliss.

“I take it a line was finally crossed with Dr. Watson, last night.”

“No.” Not really. Not yet.

“Mmm. You were asleep on the couch, however did not spend the night there. Your bed is partially unmade, slept in on the right side, slept _on_ on the left; the duvet is pulled up, but both pillows have indentations and that ghastly afghan from Martha Hudson is folded--rather poorly--at the foot of the bed. There is a mixing bowl on the floor next to your dresser, I take it Dr. Watson did not want you vomiting on his person if the need arose? Certainly seems like crossed lines to me, Sherlock.”

Sherlock exhales hard through his nose but doesn’t answer. He feels as though if he says it outloud, if he acknowledges it himself, then the entire thing will disappear, and he’ll awake in a plane or a hospital from what would be the most glorious hallucination he’d ever experienced.

He’d held him. Sherlock now knew what it was like to be held by John, to have his hair stroked and his back rubbed and to feel the prickly evening shadow on John’s neck against his nose. And then he’d made him drink, and eat, and until the time Sherlock did vomit up his dinner, he’d almost felt like he had _before_ , when it was just them and nobody else and they were both fine with that. But then John’s hands were back in his hair and running down his spine as he was bent over the toilet, his stomach evacuating the dinner he’d only eaten because John had asked him to.

_“You should try and drink some water, Sherlock.”_

_“Nnngghh,” Sherlock had slumped back from the toilet, leaning against the cool porcelain side of the large clawfoot tub. He scrubbed at his face, wet and sticky with tears. His sternum throbbed lightly, the (almost entirely) healed bullet wound aggravated by the contractions of his diaphragm and abdominal muscles._

_“I know,” John stood and flushed the toilet, then flicked the faucet on. He grabbed a clean flannel from the shelf next to the sink and wet it thoroughly, then bent back down to the floor. The cloth was cool and refreshing against his flushed cheeks, and Sherlock cared much less than he would have expected about John essentially wiping his face as if he were a child._

_“I hate this part,” Sherlock grumbled, allowing John to turn his head so he could wipe the sweat that had gathered at his temple._

_“I’m not going to say it, because I’m sure you know exactly what I’m thinking, right now.”_

_“Obviously, John,” Sherlock lifted his chin so John could swipe his damp neck._

_“Yeah,” John finished and leaned on his knee. “I’m going to mix up some salts, and we’ll see if you keep that down.” He reached and took Sherlock’s wrist, holding it and watching his watch. “Pulse seems normal. A bit thready, but you just threw up for ten minutes.”_

_“I’m fine, John. This happens every time.”_

_“Every time you interrupt a potentially fatal overdose by forcing yourself to vomit what’s left in your stomach?”_

_Sherlock rolled his eyes as best he could, which sent a shudder of pain through his skull. “Don’t be obtuse, John.”_

_“I’m not being obtuse, I’m being your physician, Sherlock,” John plopped the damp towel over the edge of the tub, then pushed himself up to standing. Sherlock could hear the creaks and cracks of his joints as he rose. He held out a hand. “Come on, let’s get you into bed.”_

_John’s hand was warm and strong when Sherlock took it, but the warmth it sent spreading through his body didn’t prevent the muscles in his chest from searing as he struggled to his feet. Despite his best efforts, he doubled in on himself, just a little, his breath hissing through his teeth._

_“Alright?” John stepped closer and wrapped his free arm around Sherlock’s hunched back._

_“Fine,” Sherlock exhaled hard through the pain. “Hurts sometimes.”_

_“It will, for awhile,” John squeezed his hand. “‘S normal, I’m afraid. Mine still does, sometimes.” He ran his hand down Sherlock’s back. “Think you can brush your teeth? You’ll regret it in the morning if you don’t.”_

_“Mmmm…” Sherlock (reluctantly) let go of John’s hand and stepped to the sink. “I threw up, John. This is nothing but a particularly severe sort of hangover. You know all about those.”_

_“And you’re still a dickhead,” John pointed out, but there was no malice in his voice. His small hand ran up and down Sherlock’s spine once more. “Teeth, then into bed.” He stepped away and left Sherlock alone with his toothbrush._

_Five minutes later, after a pass over his teeth and a rinse of his face, Sherlock shrugged out of his dressing gown, tossing it over the chair in the corner and gingerly sinking to the edge of his bed. It hit him in that moment, that he’d never expected to do that again. He’d never expected to be in his bed again, or his room, or even in London again. Seven hours ago he’d never expected to see John again, but he was here, on his bed in his room in Baker Street, and John was fiddling with something in the kitchen. For once, he found that not only could he not rationalize his way through it, through this miracle, but he had no desire to. At that moment, it didn’t matter._

_What mattered was when John stepped into his bedroom, a glass of whatever concoction he’d put together in each hand. His soft smile, genuine but concerned, mattered even more._

_“In,” he’d said simply, nodding to the bed while he set the glasses on Sherlock’s bedside table._

_“Will you stay?” Sherlock asked as he crawled in between the linens he’d never thought he’d feel on his bare feet again._

_“Yeah,” John tenderly tucked the blankets around Sherlock’s waist, then handed him one of the glasses. “Drink. I’m going to go get a bowl in case that doesn’t stay down either.”_

_John’s concoction was disgusting: lukewarm and sweet and salty all at the same time. But Sherlock’s stomach didn’t immediately revolt, which overall could be deemed as success. By the time John returned to the bedroom, Sherlock had finished almost an entire glass._

_“Not too fast,” John kicked off his shoes (the hideous brown ones, Sherlock always hated those) and set a large mixing bowl that Sherlock didn’t even know he owned on the floor at the head of the bed. Folded over his other arm was the afghan Mrs. Hudson had crotched for them years ago. “If you feel like it’s coming up, please try to aim for the bowl.”_

_Sherlock didn’t answer as John flicked off the small light on the nightstand and walked around the foot of the bed to the left side. He didn’t say anything when John sat on the edge of the bed, the low light from the street through his curtain turning John’s crown a luminous silver._

_“Lay down,” John said simply as he shifted his legs up onto the mattress and slid down so his head was on the pillow. “You need to rest.”_

_“You’ll stay?” It was all he could think to say._

_“Yeah,” John said as if his being in (on) Sherlock’s bed was something entirely commonplace. He reached under himself and pulled his mobile from his jeans pocket. The screen lit up his face, highlighting the new wrinkles in his forehead and the worry lines around his mouth. Sherlock was suddenly hit with the overwhelming realization that he was probably the cause of much of John’s aging. “I’ll have to be up early, you know.”_

_“Yes…” Sherlock slid down and laid his head on the pillow while John set his phone on the edge of the left hand nightstand. The throbbing in his skull that was beginning in earnest settled the tiniest bit when the strain was taken off his neck muscles. “Wouldn’t want to anger the dragon.”_

_“Noooo. Not now.” John’s screen went off, once again bathing the room in muted blue light. Sherlock watched John’s profile contrasted against the far wall as he relaxed into the pillow._

_Sherlock watched him for several long minutes, watching his chest rise and fall as he breathed, the shadow of his fluttering eyelashes. John in his bed. It was overwhelming and a bit confusing through the fog of nausea and his steadily-building headache, but also wonderful. John was there._

_“I shouldn’t have left you behind,” he blurted suddenly, a little too loud for the peaceful quiet that had descended on the bedroom._

_“No,” John sighed. His eyelashes settled against his cheeks as he closed his eyes. “You really shouldn’t have.” He reached over and patted Sherlock’s hip, once, twice. “Go to sleep. We’ll figure this out, but right now you need to sleep.”_

_“Alright,” Sherlock shifted--and the inside of his cranium roared--and curled in on himself a bit. He remained on his side, facing John. He didn’t dare roll over in case he disappeared._

_“And if you have to puke, remember the bowl.”_

_“I’m not a child, John.”_

_“If you say so. Now please, go the fuck to sleep, Sherlock.”_

He did sleep. And when John’s alarm went off far too early in the morning--the mixing bowl still thankfully empty--they both laid for several minutes in silence, John on his back and Sherlock still on his side, their hands dangerously close in the space between them. But eventually John sighed and pulled himself off the bed, scrubbing his hand through his hair on his way to the loo.

After he’d deposited Sherlock on the sofa, a cup of coffee and egg sandwich grabbed from Speedy’s on the coffee table, John issues one last edict.

_“I mean it, Sherlock. Nothing, without me. Please. I need you here.”_

And then he left, back to the home he now shared with the enemy.

“Sherlock.” Mycroft’s voice cuts through Sherlock’s reverie.

“Why are you still here?”

“Because much like I’m sure Dr. Watson wants you to do, I also want to keep you in the loop as much as feasible.”

“‘As much as feasible?’”

“For now, yes. Especially since I am also making this up on the fly. But I assume you came to the same conclusion as I did regarding Mrs. Watson?”

“Only an idiot wouldn’t.” 

“And Dr. Watson?”

Sherlock hesitates for a moment. Just a moment. “Yes.”

“Good.” Mycroft tapped the end of his umbrella against the floor once, then stood up from the chair. “I am having a disposable mobile delivered to him with utmost care as we speak. You and I will the be the only two people with access to it.”

“With a tracker?” Sherlock tents his hands under his chin. Stupid, Mycroft knows it’s a nervous tell.

“Yes. I’ve also activated the global positioning in your mobile, Sherlock.” He steps over to the coffee table and leans heavily on his umbrella. Sherlock glances up briefly. The umbrella seems more ridiculous than usual. “And for the love of God, do not take it apart and scramble it.”

“Mmmm.”

“I mean it, Sherlock.” Mycroft’s voice develops a stern--even for him--edge to it. “We all three of us share a common goal. You must do your part, little brother.”

“I can assure you that I’ve already assured John of my compliance.” He promised. He promised John, and this is a promise Sherlock will do everything he can to keep.

“There are a few more things I need to look into before we do anything else, and you have my word I will inform you when I am aware of things myself.”

“I suppose I should thank you,” Sherlock pushes himself up on his elbows to look at the figure looming over him. “But I can’t help but wonder what on earth we should be doing now?”

“Nothing, brother mine. You will do nothing,” Mycroft lifts his umbrella and examines the handle. Mycroft’s nervous tell. “You will carry on as if this was merely a minor hiccup in the deranged way of Sherlock Holmes. Very few people know about the Magnussen incident--which I will not forget, Sherlock--and that clears the way for your life to return to”--Mycroft rolls his eyes--”normal.”

“Normal.”

“Yes, Sherlock. ‘Normal.’ You will take minor cases, not high profile to call attention to yourself. You will spend time in the morgue doing whatever disgusting things you do. You will consult with Detective Inspector Lestrade. You will invite Dr. Watson, and if she requests, you will keep Mrs. Watson involved.”

“Will she want to be?”

“I imagine so. And we have time, for now.” Mycroft sets his umbrella back on the floor with a light *clunk*. “But you must behave with the utmost of care. If not for me, or yourself, do it for Dr. Watson.”

Sherlock lays his head back down on his pile of pillows and closes his eyes. “I will, Mycroft. For John. I would die for John. You know that.”

“I do. And you effectively did, three times over. But I think he’d much rather you lived for him.” With a sigh, Mycroft slid towards the door. “I will be sending over agents today to install panic alarms. Again, I strongly encourage you to not fiddle with them.”

“Go away, Mycroft. You’re making my headache infinitely worse.”

“Mmmm. And do take some paracetamol, little brother.”

And with that, the door snicks quietly closed behind him. Sherlock listens to his heavy footsteps down the stair, out the door. For some reason, he feels worse. Mycroft said nothing infuriating, hadn’t bade Sherlock to do anything he hadn’t already promised John he’d do, but he still feels worse. 

When he’s sure Mycroft has left 221B (the door slammed, he’s gone), Sherlock rises from the sofa. He slowly makes his way up the stairs to the third floor, up to John’s room, where he slept while he was keeping a watchful eye over Sherlock in the weeks before their disastrous Christmas. The door creaks when he pushes it open--it always did, giving Sherlock ample warning that John was coming down and to clean up the more gruesome parts of his experiments--and the room is dark, quiet. It smells like John, still. It hadn’t, for almost a year before he was shot.

Sherlock takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and forcing himself to remember what John had said the night before. _“I want to come home.”_ He looks around the room, empty save for an extra pair of boots, a spare car charger, and just as he expected, a hideous blue and white terry cloth dressing gown slung over the back of a wicker-seated chair. Sherlock quickly grabs it, loathe to stay anymore in a room that smells like John when John isn’t there, hastily retreating back to the sitting room. As hastily as he can in his current condition.

He sheds his own silk dressing gown, all slippery smooth cool fabric, tossing it haphazardly over the back of his leather chair (it’ll cover the stench of Mycroft’s ridiculous cologne). He pulls on John’s dressing gown, the arms too short and the hem coming to barely the top of his thighs, inhaling deeply as he ties it around his waist. This still smells like John, too; cheap laundry detergent and whatever-shampoo-was-on-sale-at-Tesco (he refuses to use Sherlock’s shampoo), as well as tea and blackberry jam and honey, and something else Sherlock can’t name, but has smelled since the day John moved into Baker Street. The scent was gone when Sherlock returned after his time away, replaced by the smell of dust and Dettol, and after Sherlock was back, cigarette smoke and formaldehyde.

Sherlock grabs the small bottle of paracetamol off the table--left by John next to his cup of coffee--and quickly swallows two, dry. He grabs his mobile; he will find what the tracking device is, even if he doesn’t scramble it. Then he retreats to the worn fabric armchair, which he’d only moved from the sitting room because he couldn’t bear to look at it without John in it, sinking into the sagging stuffing and pulling his knees up to his chest. The chair smells like John too: warm and spicy and musky, like a fire in autumn. Sherlock hopes the scent won’t dissipate before they figure this out, before they can find a way for John to come home.

Sherlock doesn’t realize he dozes, until a vibration against his belly wakes him. It’s from an unknown number, but Sherlock knows immediately who it is.

_Only text my mobile if Mary can see it; I’ll occasionally text from there. Everything else here. Mycroft also has the number. Be careful, Sherlock. Do not keep anything from me._

_He said he must look into some things, and to behave “normally.” SH_

_You? Normal? Haha. He indicated the same to me in his message. So I guess we wait._

_Yes. We wait. SH_

_I feel as though I should apologize in advance John. SH_

_Don’t you dare. Get some more rest. I’ll text from my mobile later._

_Be careful. SH_

_You too, Sherlock._

It’s not much, but it’s something, and it’s enough to remind Sherlock that across London, in a flat in the suburbs with a woman who would most likely kill them both on a whim, John is thinking of him.

Sherlock curls up tighter in the old armchair, and drifts off to sleep. He can hear Mrs. Hudson’s telly below him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Corrections provided by [thejohnwatson](http://thejohnhwatson.tumblr.com//). Thank you for picking up my slack, dear!
> 
> Also, SHAMELESS PROMOTION: follow me on tumblr if you are so inclined. [whimsicalethnographies](http://whimsicalethnographies.tumblr.com/)


	3. Undercover lasagna and suspicious biscottini

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “True, and we’re bringing all the food, he could--wait, why do you still have a key?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John POV

“Darling.”

John rolls his eyes; he can’t bear Mary’s pet names, the sickening sweet voice she uses to speak to him. As if she didn’t do anything wrong, as if she didn’t shoot his best friend in the heart. As if the entirety of their marriage isn’t based on a lie. 

Her voice is extra grating today, and it is compounded by the fact that John hasn’t heard from Sherlock in three days. His left hand won’t stop twitching and the pain is beginning to settle into his thigh in earnest. _Eight o’clock. If I don’t hear from him by eight o’clock, I’ll text him. And Mycroft._

“Yes?” John looks up as Mary waddles into the sitting room. The chair he’s sitting in is awful; it’s stiff and the fabric is scratchy, not at all like his old armchair at Baker Street.

“I’ve ordered a crib; it should be arriving today or tomorrow.” Her voice is cloying and somehow like a dentist’s drill into John’s spinal cord. “You’ll need to put it together.”

“Of course,” John grunts, turning back to the paper in his hand. Things have been strained, to say the least. John is sleeping in the guest room, he can’t bring himself to sleep in the same bed as Mary. Especially not since sleeping in Sherlock’s bed. 

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Mary leans down, aiming for a kiss, but John turns his head, and she hits his cheek instead of his mouth. 

“Mmmm,” John hums, resolutely staring at the paper in his hands, but not really reading any words. He has the vague feeling that Mary is put out, but honestly, he doesn’t care. The way she has been “trying,” feels uncomfortable, and off, and John has never been more sure of Sherlock’s (and his) suspicions: Mary is trying to play a role as well. She’s been overly sweet, touchy, and almost coquettish, but that’s where it stops. Which John is glad; he honestly doesn’t think he’d even be able to climb into bed with her if he tried, which he resolutely doesn’t want to. She’s a murderer, a liar, and fraud, one who attempted to kill his best friend. No thank you. But Mary only pushes so far. She ensures John always knows where she’s going, but let’s it drop when he refuses to accompany her. Every night she asks him if he’ll join her in their (her) bedroom, but only once. Mary appears to be pushing just far enough, just enough to show she’s making an effort. 

John can’t even be mad at that, because that’s essentially what he’s doing. Just enough. The three and a half weeks since Sherlock’s plane turned around have been absolute torture--the past three days pushing John to his limit--with only the bright light of one or both of the Holmes brothers finally figuring out how to safely extract John. 

_And the baby_ , John reminds himself as he shakes the paper, trying again to concentrate on the blurry words. He really should put his spectacles on, but the last time he wore them Mary had tittered so ridiculously it had turned his stomach. No. 

They have to wait at least until the baby is born. Then they can go from there, look at their options. It’s only four and a half weeks off. Just little over a month.

Suddenly John’s back pocket pings. He can’t reach back fast enough, almost dropping the mobile as he pulls it out.

_Due date? SH_

It’s his usual mobile, not the burner stashed in the waistband of his pants or on the sill of the small window behind the shower curtain when he’s in the loo, so he knows Sherlock is deliberately playing dumb in the event that Mary is reading over his shoulder.

John’s relief is palpable as he types out an answer. _Four and a half weeks. 2 March._

“Who’s that, sweetheart?” John rolls his eyes as Mary speaks from behind him. He can hear her stepping up behind his (horrible) chair.

“Sherlock.” No point in lying. If he was required to, Sherlock would have texted the other mobile.

_Lestrade has some cold cases. Could use your assistance. Perhaps you and Mary would be amenable to dinner tomorrow evening? SH._

“Sherlock? Haven’t heard from him in awhile. I was beginning to wonder if he’d forgotten about you.”

It takes all of John’s resolve not allow his disgust and anger flash across his face. “Nope,” he holds the phone up so Mary can read the text. She makes a move to take the phone from him but he pulls his arm back down, hoping he wasn’t too obvious. “Could be fun.”

“For you,” Mary puts her hand on her hip. “What if he wants you to chase him around London?”

“He won’t; the cases are probably 20 years old. Mycroft probably asked Greg to find something under the radar for him to do. Keep him busy.”

“Hmmm, so he doesn’t end up in a doss house again? John, if he wants to get high, he’s going to get high.”

“And Mycroft, and Greg, and _I_ want to make sure he doesn’t want to.”

Mary sighs. “Fine. I suppose it might be fun,” she turns and walks back to the kitchen. “One last time, the gang together.”

Now that Mary isn’t looking at him, John allows his face to twist into a scowl in response to her audacity. _Gang._ “Good. Maybe you can help.” He almost gags on the words.

_Wouldn’t miss it. I’ll put together a lasagna? We’ll be there at 6._

_Good. SH_

John stuffs his phone back in his pocket and pulls himself out of the chair. 

“He wants lasagna, have to run to the shops,” John says casually as he heads over to the coat rack by the door.

“You have to help him _and_ cook for him?” Mary looks incredulous. She’s pouring a glass of water from her ridiculous filtered pitcher that probably cost as much as a pair of Sherlock’s shoes.

“If he wants to eat, who am I to argue?” John shrugs on his coat. “Just have to grab some things. Do you need anything?”

Mary makes a face like she’s thinking for a second, then her face breaks into a smile. A smile that rather makes John feel sick to his stomach. 

“Yes!” She says, a little too cheerfully. “I’ll make biscottini when we get there! Give me something to do. Let me make a list.”

“Alright,” John watches her scribble things on a scrap of paper, then is out the door a few minutes later.

John waits until he’s several blocks from the flat, then pulls over into a fairly busy car park. He jumps out of the car, and walks two car spots over to stand between an old Chevy and a black Mercedes. He pulls the burner mobile out of his pants. As he expected, there’s a message.

_Don’t panic. I’m playing nice, remember? SH_

_I’m not panicking. Well, not anymore._

_I’m sorry, John. I was busy and lost track of time. SH_

John smiles. _It’s alright. But set an alarm. :) And why do you sign these? I know it’s you._

_Fine._

_Nothing new?_ John hopes that Sherlock would tell him without prompting--he promised--but he has to ask. He has to.

_Unfortunately, no. I would tell you._

_I know, I know. But I’m getting antsy._

_Me too. But we have no choice._

John sighs to himself. _No. We don’t right now._

_Don’t put mushrooms in the lasagna._

_I’ll leave them out of half. Mary is going to make biscottini?_

_Is she? I’ll be sure to not eat any._

_That’s not a bad idea, actually._

_Extra cheese._

_Maybe you should make the goddamn lasagna._

_Don’t be ridiculous, John. You’re the cook._

*****

They arrive at Baker Street a few minutes late, having had to park a block away on the crowded street. John fervently misses the days when he wasn’t required to worry about a car. He’s loaded down with his pan of lasagna--extra cheese, with mushrooms only in half--and Mary’s bags of baking supplies. She follows behind him, looking around the street as if she’s never seen it before. Ridiculous.

When they arrive at the door, John immediately notices that the knocker is straight. Mycroft has been here recently, most likely in the time since Sherlock last left the flat.

“Do you think we should have brought wine?”

“What?”

“Wine. I mean, I couldn’t really enjoy it,” Mary pulls a face as if she is the picture of martyrdom. “But you two could have enjoyed it.”

“Uh, no. We’re going to be working,” John shifts the glass pan awkwardly into the cradle of his arm holding the bags, and reaches into his jeans pocket for his key.

“True, and we’re bringing all the food, he could--wait, why do you still have a key?”

“What?” John manages to pull his key out without dropping his load. Mary has not offered to take anything, her hands still in her pockets.

“Your key. You still have it.” Mary looks at him incredulously. There is an amused half-smile on her face, but her eyes are cold, steely.

“Of course I still have it,” John doesn’t miss a beat, and turns to the door. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well, you don’t live here anymore, for starters. And I don’t know if you’d remembered, but you’re going to be a father soon. You won’t have much time to come here.”

“Maybe not,” John turns the key in the lock, then pockets it. “But he’s still my best friend.” He shoulders the door open and enters the entryway.

Mrs. Hudson’s flat is dark; probably at her sister’s. John bounds up the stairs, barely hampered by his armful of food. The door to the flat is open, the sitting room bathed in soft light from the red lamp behind the sofa and the street lights from Baker Street. Sherlock is sitting in the middle of the floor, papers and folios piled around them and onto their chairs. John wasn’t expecting to feel so relieved to see his chair right where it should be, unlike the last time he returned to Baker Street after being gone for almost a month.

And to see Sherlock sitting on the floor, surrounded by a mess of Work, the low light throwing his impossible cheekbones into sharp contrast and weaving gold into his black curls, completely immersed in whatever horrifying thing he’s reading, it’s good, and sends a sharp spark and simultaneous heavy warmth through his belly.

“Hey,” he says softly, knowing Mary is barely at the second landing. 

Sherlock lifts his head and smiles, the soft quirk of a smile that John feels he hasn’t seen in forever. His eyes glitter in the low light. “John. Hello.”

“You shouldn’t be reading in such low light, you know,” John smiles back, the first real smile he’s smiled in what feels like years.

“Oh,” Sherlock turns to the windows. “I hadn’t realized it had grown so late.”

“Mmm, right,” John turns to deposit his wares in the kitchen and hears Mary trudge heavily into the flat. The table is surprisingly clean, cleared of all manner of beakers and flasks and disturbing experiments.

“What’s this mess?” She says, and John can only imagine the look on her face. Irritation and judgement.

“Hello, Mary,” Sherlock’s voice is cheery, alarmingly so. John can hear the act in it, but honestly has no idea if Mary can. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired. I’m not used to climbing two flights of stairs.”

“Please then, have a seat.”

“Where?” John returns to the sitting room in time to see Mary gesture around the room. It is a mess; papers and books and old, yellowing file folders are strewn over just about every flat surface.

John strides into the sitting room, and moves some papers and folders off the sofa to an already teetering pile on the coffee table. Sherlock remains where he is on the floor, serenely watching as John makes room for Mary. “There.”

“Oh, don’t bother,” Mary titters and turns towards the kitchen. “I have to start on the biscottini anyway.” 

John flits a look at Sherlock, who merely raises an eyebrow and smirks. At least one of them finds the situation amusing. 

“I’ll pop the lasagna in, then. Are you hungry? When did you last eat?”

Sherlock merely shrugs and turns back to the paper in his lap. “Mrs. Hudson brought something awhile ago.”

“She’s not home, Sherlock.”

“Oh. Then perhaps it was yesterday.”

“Mmm, ‘perhaps.’ You’re going to eat two pieces.”

“Fine. Did you leave out the mushrooms?”

“They’re only in half.”

“Extra cheese?”

“Yes, Sherlock.”

Sherlock makes an indistinguishable rumbling sound, not unlike a purr. John steps up behind Sherlock, watching as he peruses the file. He can feel the heat of Sherlock’s body against his legs.

“Sweetheart,” Mary calls from the kitchen, and John’s smile drops as he sees Sherlock flinch, just a bit.

“Yeah?”

“What temperature should I set the oven on for the lasagna?”

John looks up; Mary is standing in the entryway, dish towel thrown over her shoulder. “Oh, whatever you need. Forgiving recipe,” he turns back to Sherlock as Mary goes back into the kitchen. “I’ll pop the pan in,” he says quietly, his voice low enough he could only be speaking to Sherlock, as if they’re alone in the flat. The way they used to be. “Won’t take long, but we can get to work.” John reaches down and squeezes Sherlock’s shoulder, once, twice. Sherlock stiffens when his thumb runs gently over the warm, smooth skin of his neck just above the collar of his shirt. John looks quickly into the kitchen; Mary is facing the oven, fiddling with one of the ancient knobs. He quickly looks back down, watching as Sherlock shivers when he moves his fingers to his neck. He squeezes, running his index finger up into the soft, overlong curls. “Shouldn’t take too long,” John says, loud enough for Mary to hear this time.

Sherlock exhales hard when John lifts his head and heads into the kitchen.

****

It’s not as bad as John thought it would be. Oh, it’s pretty horrible, awkward and stilted, and he and Sherlock make hardly any progress with Mary flitting between the kitchen and the sitting room to make unnecessary comments and generally just ensure they’d both remembered her presence. 

“Next time, John,” Mary sets her plate on the coffee table, “use less cheese. So much dairy gives me indigestion.”

“Sherlock requested it,” John says mildly, pushing himself up off the floor to retrieve Mary’s plate. Behind him, Sherlock pointedly stabs a bite with his fork. He actually ate a second helping, with only a single grumble when John insisted.

Mary smiles too sweetly. “Well, next time at home then.” She scoots forward on the sofa. “Help me up, I’ll put together our biscottini. Sherlock, do you have any coffee?”

“Mrs. Hudson puts it in the cabinet next to the fridge.” His voice rumbles around a mouthful of saucy, cheesy lasagna. “I also believe the milk is good. It was this morning. Or yesterday morning.”

“You are, without a doubt, the worst host in the world,” John smiles as he watches Sherlock shovel another forkful of lasagna into his mouth.

“I make up for it by being astounding company,” Sherlock spears the last piece on his plate then holds it up for John to take. “And you were always the better host.”

“From your mouth,” John takes it and heads into the kitchen to start the washing up. Mary is fumbling with the percolator.

“Who on earth still uses these?” She gripes, when she finally gets it switched on.

“They make the best coffee,” John flicks on the faucet, giving each plate a brief rinse. He bends to grab the dish soap from under the sink, but Mary stops him.

“Leave it, John. We did enough work.”

John is about to retort when Sherlock’s voice drifts through the kitchen. “Yes, John, leave them. We should try and see what else we can work out, we’ve hardly made any progress.” 

John isn’t sure, but he thinks Sherlock may not be talking about the old case files strewn about the sitting room. Sherlock is looking at the plate of biscottini on the kitchen table. His face is bland enough, but John can practically hear the gears turning in his head.

“Oh, that reminds me John!” Mary pulls the milk from the refrigerator, which was also surprisingly clear of unsavory items. John wonders what Sherlock was so busy with the past three days, if it wasn’t one of his usual all-consuming experiments. The cold cases weren’t _that_ interesting.

“Hmmm?”

“I was cleaning the closet the other day, have to make some room after all, and, did you move your gun? I couldn’t find it anywhere?”

Sherlock’s eyes flick up to John’s behind Mary. 

“Safety deposit. Sherlock recommended one that wouldn’t ask questions. Didn’t think it would appropriate with a baby in the house,” John says smoothly. Sherlock looks from John’s face to the door of his bedroom, where the gun actually is. Left buried behind his sock index, the morning after his aborted exile. _I’ll be fine, Sherlock. I’d rather it be here, for more than one reason._

“Oh,” Mary smiles, her head tilting slightly. “How thoughtful of you. Remind me to get the information from you. Now,” she turns to the table, “who’s for coffee and dessert?”

“Actually,” Sherlock clears his throat. “As much fun as this evening has been, I think you should both go. I’ve hardly made any headway, and socializing any longer will surely impede any further progress.”

Mary’s smile disappears. “Are you kidding?”

“I’m afraid not,” he’s looking at John, as if addressing only him. “John, thank you for what help you’ve given me, it is invaluable as always. But I think I must forge ahead alone.”

Mary whips her head around to glare at John. He shrugs. “Alright, if you say so.” John tries to keep the disappointment out of his voice. He knows exactly what Sherlock is doing, but he was hoping to have another hour at least at Baker Street before going back to the stale, uncomfortable air in Mary’s flat. “I’m leaving the lasagna, though. Lord knows you won’t find food for yourself while Mrs. Hudson is out.”

“I should like to take some home, John,” Mary raises an eyebrow, as if she’s issuing some sort of challenge. Over lasagna.

“You don’t like extra cheese,” John puts the pan in the fridge. “And he’s right, it’s late. Don’t you have an appointment tomorrow morning?”

“What?”

“At the obstetrician? I specifically asked the morning off for it,” John sees Sherlock’s eyes narrow where he’s standing behind Mary.

“Oh, yes,” in an instant, Mary’s smile is back, but her eyebrow remains cocked. “I rescheduled, thinking we would be here late. Appears that was a waste.” She smooths her hands over her large belly. “I’ll leave the cookies, too. John is right, Sherlock. I don’t know how you fended for yourself for so long.”

“Pure luck.” Sherlock smiles his best fake smile.

“Incredible luck!” Mary says, a bit of incredulousness in her voice, and John clearly hears the double entendre. “Although at least we’ll be plenty ready for a newborn, having taken care of someone so scatterbrained and ungrateful for so long.” Her voice is singsong, teasing, but it has an edge like steel to it. “Right, let me just pop into the loo. John, please get my coat.”

As soon as the bathroom door closes, Sherlock crosses to the sink and flicks the faucet on full-blast. His voice goes low. “My apologies, John. But--”

“I know. Don’t want to get too comfortable, or act differently. And you are rude and ungrateful, so...well-played.”

“The gun…”

“It’s fine,” John reaches out and squeezes Sherlock’s bicep. “Like I said, I’d much rather it was here.” He looks at the table. “And you throw those out as soon as we leave. Out of the flat. Don’t want you mindlessly grabbing one.”

“Astute as always, John.” The toilet flushes, and John jumps to grab Mary’s coat from the hook in the sitting room. Sherlock leaves the faucet on and makes a show of bending to get the dish soap as Mary comes out of the bathroom. 

“Here we are,” John comes over and holds Mary’s coat out to her. She smiles sweetly, sticking her arm into the sleeve.

“Well, thank you for an evening, Sherlock,” her voice is cheery again, the dark undertones from a few minutes ago completely gone. “Who knows when we’ll have another chance! Only a few more weeks.” She is barely able to close the coat around her swollen belly. “And do eat some cookies, Sherlock. You’ve lost weight since the last time I saw you!”

“Eat one for me,” John shrugs on his coat as Mary comes into the sitting room, Sherlock on her heels.

“Oh, don’t worry John, I can make some for you at home,” she emphasizes the word _home_. 

“Great,” John turns to Sherlock. “Let me know what you figure out. And call if you need anything.”

“John! I--oh!” Mary looks startled for a moment, her hand immediately going to her belly. “The baby is kicking,” she smiles serenely, her hand moving in circles. The moment drags on a bit long, too long in John’s opinion, and Mary doesn’t offer her belly to him. He is torn between the instinct to ask to feel and the urge to tell her to knock it the fuck off. Abruptly, her hand stops, her eyes leveling with John’s. “Let’s go home, darling.” She turns to the door and pulls it open.

“Well, night then,” John says simply--Mary is out the door but still within earshot. 

“Good night, John,” Sherlock straightens his spine. His eyes look sad as he watches Mary start down the stairs.

John presses his hand firmly against the small of Sherlock’s back for a moment, then follows Mary out of the flat.

****

Back at Mary’s flat, when she is in bed in her bedroom and John is undressing in the guest room he’s made his home, he pulls the mobile from the elastic waistband of his pants. There’s a message.

_The cookies have been run under the faucet and are safely tied in a plastic bag in the bottom of Mrs. Hudson’s bins._

_Good. That was...something. Good. But. Yeah._

_Indeed. Be safe, John._

_You too, Sherlock. Remember what you promised._

_I do._

John is glad Mary didn’t offer her belly to him earlier. Now that he’s out of Baker Street, back in his very own hell in the suburbs, he can’t bear the thought of touching her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Corrections provided by [thejohnwatson](http://thejohnhwatson.tumblr.com//). Thank you for picking up my slack, dear!
> 
>  
> 
> Also, SHAMELESS PROMOTION: follow me on tumblr if you are so inclined. [whimsicalethnographies](http://whimsicalethnographies.tumblr.com/)


	4. Soft wool and kevlar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh, I honestly don’t know what he’ll do with you. And frankly I don’t care. But it is enormously useful to me to not have to deal with you anymore. You are quite the burden, you know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock POV
> 
> ***warning***
> 
> Violence, and John is pretty cold when he's taking care of business. Also, Mary is awful so I don't feel bad at all. But if that's not your bag, or if you don't like the idea of Ms. Morstan (as far as I'm concerned, the marriage wasn't real because Mary isn't real so she's not Mrs. Watson) getting her just desserts and clearing the way for our babies, don't read please!

Sherlock walks into the kitchen and stops abruptly. In the sitting room is a slight blonde woman, dressed all in black. This time, the gun is pointed at his head.

“There was never an appointment,” Sherlock looks pointedly at Mary’s decidedly NOT pregnant belly. John’s gun is still buried behind his sock index. 

“There were never any appointments, Sherlock. Really, the only reason John thinks you’re so smart is because he’s an idiot himself.”

“What were you planning on doing? Buying a baby?” If he were to be completely honest with himself, Sherlock would have admitted this is not the possibility he’d have put money on. Of course, it was one of many he’d considered, but he’d dismissed it outright as too ludicrous. Too cruel.

“Shut up, Sherlock,” Mary shifts on her feet but keeps the gun aimed between Sherlock’s eyes. Sherlock will not tempt her again; even if she were off-centre, the bullet would find a fatal mark. He does, however, lean into the table in the kitchen. A mere brush of his fingers and he’ll activate the silent alarm Mycroft had insisted be installed after he’d returned to Baker Street. They both knew eventually she’d come here.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Mrs. Watson?” 

“I was getting bored,” there is a manic gleam in Mary’s eyes, something terrifying that Sherlock has never seen before. “Tedious, dancing around the way we were.”

“I must concur. It was rather tedious, wasn’t it? But tell me, what made it particularly tedious for you?”

“John is right,” Mary snorts derisively. “For a genius, you really are stupid.”

“Do tell?”

Mary smiles, a twisted, serpentine sort of smile. “There was a longer game, but...all’s the better I remove you from the equation now. I can benefit just as much. And if you don’t realize, you don’t deserve him.”

“And you do, Agatha?”

Mary’s eyes narrow when Sherlock calls her by her real name. To Sherlock’s knowledge, only he and Mycroft know it. John refused; he didn’t want to know. 

“No, I suppose not. But it doesn’t matter, does it Sherlock Holmes? I want you to know, specifically, that John will be mine, or he will be no one’s. Now, it’s really your choice…” Mary slips the safety on the small gun. “You either come with me, have one final adventure before your demise, thus leaving John Watson free to me, or,” she sneers, a vicious sneer that makes the pit of Sherlock’s stomach drop. “I leave here, find my darling husband, and make it so at the very least you don’t get him either. I mean, I can still play out that longer game if you prefer. Or maybe I can shoot you here then go find him. It’s no better than he deserves, either. I’m finding him more tiresome by the day.”

“Go where?” Not that it matters. Sherlock will go, would go anywhere, if it means keeping her away from John now. Their entire ruse, John going back to her for the purposes of his SAFETY, if nothing else, is hanging by the thinnest of threads. Even as he promised John that morning, it was never about Sherlock. Not that it matters now; he’ll brush the button, and John will surely be one of Mycroft’s first contacts. But rather he go and die and John be sped off to safety than the other alternatives. Mycroft will help him. And John is strong, so much stronger than Sherlock could ever hope to be.

“Someplace fun. I had a bit of conversation with an old friend; we both agreed that a bit more expediency than originally planned wouldn’t do much harm.”

“Friend?”

“Well, I had to have someone make the video, didn’t I?”

Sherlock considers for a moment. He’d known Mary was behind it, was behind it all, but why would she--

“Oh, don’t hurt yourself, Sherlock. Jim was stupid, and fanciful. He should have never made it to the top. You see,” she shifts to her other leg, but the gun remains steadily pointed at Sherlock’s head. “I’m more pragmatic. He wanted a grand ending, I want to get things done. You’re quite valuable, Sherlock Holmes. So many uses. I found one, mutually beneficial to both parties.”

“And how is that?”

“Oh, I honestly don’t know what he’ll do with you. And frankly I don’t care. But it is enormously useful to me to not have to deal with you anymore. You are quite the burden, you know.”

That explains it then. Sherlock had known that after his (rather fortuitous) return to the minds of London, Jim Moriarty would make his presence substantially known. Only it wasn’t really Jim. It was Jim’s successor. His mistake was thinking Mary was acting in his stead, not on her own. 

“Color me curious, then. Please lead the way, Mrs. Watson.”

Mary rolls her eyes dramatically, and Sherlock takes that fraction of a moment when her eyes aren’t on him to deftly hit the small button on the underside of the table. 

“Like I’d turn my back on you for a second,” Mary spits. “Out.” She shakes the gun briefly, points it towards the door, then immediately back to Sherlock.

Sherlock merely nods, and slowly walks towards the door of 221B and out onto the stairs. Mary follows swiftly behind him.

“Can I ask, how did you dispose of Mrs. Hudson?”

“We knew she would be out. Tea with her great-niece. He had eyes everywhere, you know. It’s quite useful.”

“I’ll take that into future consideration.” Sherlock stops at the heavy front door.

“You don’t have a future, you belligerent little cocksucker,” Mary smiles sweetly and reaches up to press the gun to the back of Sherlock’s head. “Out into the car outside. If you run, I will shoot, and then I will go find John. This time, I won’t miss, Sherlock. On either of you.” 

“Understood,” Sherlock nods and flings the door open. The day is far too bright, and there is no sign of any of Mycroft’s men on Baker Street, despite his assurances that it would be minutes once the button was pressed. There is a tracker in his phone, but Sherlock knows it will be taken as soon as he gets in the sleek black car waiting at the curb. Bugger.

“Out,” Mary presses the muzzle into Sherlock’s skull and he obliges, striding the four lengths from the door to the car. He—slowly—opens it, eyes glancing around one more time for any other car that may belong to the British government. Nothing. Damn. His stomach is growing colder and heavier by the second.

So Sherlock does the only thing he can do: he gets in and shuts the door behind him. He is separated from whoever is driving by a thick panel of completely opaque black ballistic glass. No help there.

Several seconds later the rear passenger side door opens and Mary slides in, gun immediately pointed back at Sherlock. She smiles again, and it reminds Sherlock of the sickeningly cloying sweet smell of human putrefaction. His stomach roils.

“Now, because I know you’d know your way around this city with your eyes closed, I’m going to take certain precautions,” She reaches under the seat and pulls out a small black case, flips the lid. A syringe is inside.

“I’m sorry to say it, Mrs. Watson, but that is remarkably unimaginative.”

“I’ll take that into future consideration,” Mary taunts, and the last thing Sherlock remembers plainly is a sharp prick into the side of his neck.

****

When Sherlock wakes properly, he is in a cold, dank room, tied to a wooden folding chair. He is also in considerable pain; his hands burn and stab, and both his ribs and his head throb with the beat of his pulse. At least he still has a pulse. His tongue feels like sandpaper in his mouth and his stomach feels as though it could push itself up and out of his mouth any second. 

Sherlock has flits and flashes of images in his brain: being shoved into the chair and someone—not Mary—bending back the fingers of his right hand as they tied him down. A steel-toed boot in his ribs, knocking his chair over, the sickening crack inside his own skull as it contacted with the cold, concrete floor. Nothing else.

Sherlock forces his eyes open, and his left eyelid sticks and pulls with the dried blood from his head. He is shivering violently but can’t tell if he is actually cold or not. His vision swims and he has to close his eyes again as a wave of dizzy nausea sweeps him. He tries again, swallowing down his urge to retch and looks around the space in front of him. His eyes are blurry but the large room is dark, and even if he could see he doubted he’d be able to tell anything in the dim light. Sherlock has no idea how long it’s been, and has no way of knowing.

Then, the most important thought screams in his brain: JOHN.

“I texted him, told him I was at a friend’s and would rather spend the night as it was late,” Mary’s voice drifts over to him. From his left. “It’s just nine in the morning…I’m assuming he’s already on his way to the clinic. We have plenty of time to play before I have to get back to make my husband dinner.”

Another wave of nausea sweeps through Sherlock as he thinks of John, sitting in his flat in the suburbs, eating dinner with Mary while Sherlock sits tied up wherever he is. Another promise broken. Just after 9am; it has barely been twenty-two hours since Mary came to the flat. Sherlock shifts in the chair, just a bit…his phone is still in his back pocket. He’s surprised—and a bit disgusted frankly—that no one had thought to search him. Where is Mycroft? Had the alarm not activated properly?

“Don’t hurt him,” Sherlock turns his head the best he can in the direction of Mary’s voice and grimaces as pain shoots up his spine. His breath catches painfully. If the alarm hadn’t alerted Mycroft, not only did it mean no one is aware of his predicament, but it also means that John is still in London, and still in danger. “Please.”

“Please what?” Mary’s voice is sing-song, and it makes Sherlock shiver. It distinctly reminds him of a snake, and another voice. The same to the core, no matter what Mary claimed about Moriarty. Her heels click closer to him, and suddenly she is right in front of him. She keeps a safe distance but reaches out and grabs a handful of bloody curls, yanking his head up. The gash in his scalp pulls. “Please, what, darling Sherlock?”

“Please don’t hurt him,” Sherlock hates her, hates her more than he’d ever hated anything. If there was any way to guarantee John’s safety, really guarantee it, he will die gladly here and now, no regrets. But he doesn’t have that guarantee, and that thought makes it hard to breathe.

“Oh, I won’t,” Mary screws her face up in mock-thought. “Well, probably not. I mean you never know.” She looks directly at Sherlock’s face again. She smiles again. Sherlock wants to vomit again. “But probably not. I mean, I was only growing so disgusted with him because of you, and now that you’ll be out of the way, I can go back to living with sweet, stupid John. I mean,” her eyes widen in mock concern. “He might kill himself himself when you disappear; oh, you should have seen him Sherlock, he was a shell of a man before he _found_ me. It was so sad, so pitiful. But I suppose it’s a risk I’m willing to take. And the best part is, you’ll never know what happens to him! And what will he think? You’ve already left him once, after all. It’s positively delightful.”

Sherlock has to actively swallow down the bile that is rising in his throat. “Mary…"

“You know, we do have some time before my friend gets here, and I have some time before I have to get home to start John’s dinner, so I think I’ll play with you a bit. Just until he gets here to take you off my hands. Would you like that?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer. Mary doesn’t like that.

“ANSWER ME!” She shrieks, and pulls hard on his hair.

“Do I have a choice?” Sherlock spits. It’s hard to talk when his tongue feels so thick and his mouth is so dry and he honestly feels as if his entire chest cavity is going to explode out of his chest.

“No, I don’t suppose you do,” Mary releases his hair, and gently strokes the side of Sherlock’s face. He flinches. “I think,” she pats his cheek, slaps actually, then takes a small step back. “I think you should open your mouth for me.” Mary lifts her right hand; Sherlock sees she still has the small gun. “I want to put the gun in your mouth. For fun. I can pretend I’m going to blow your pretty brains out the back of your pretty head, and you can pretend you’re sucking my husband’s cock. Wouldn’t that be so much fu—”

Suddenly there is a loud crack, a gunshot, and Mary screams in agony. She stumbles and falls to the side—Sherlock’s right—her gun hitting the floor and skittering a few feet away. Before Sherlock’s weary eyes can make sense of the commotion, a figure is descending on him. His slowed capacities don’t give him time to react before his face is pressed into soft wool that is covering something rigid and hard. A small, perfect, strong hand cups the back of his head, pressing his face more tightly into the wool and Kevlar-covered body in front of him.

JOHN.

“Don’t. Move.” John’s voice growls above him. It is harder than Sherlock has ever heard it, save for once he was sure up until this moment had just been a dream, a morphine induced hallucination when he was drifting in and out of consciousness the morning after he’d been shot. _When I find out who did this to you, I will kill him, Sherlock. I will destroy him._ Maybe it hadn’t been a dream.

“John,” Mary’s voice is strained and muffled by John’s jumper.

“Don’t you dare say my name. And don’t you DARE even look at him—WHAT DID I SAY?” John roars and Sherlock flinches as his SIG cracks again. Sherlock turns his head slightly and sees Mary crumpled on the ground a few feet away. Her left calf is bleeding profusely and she is clutching her right hand; she must have lunged for the gun and so John fired again, grazing her finger.

“John…” Mary’s face shifts seamlessly into something he recalled from BEFORE, something soft and pleading and like the woman he’d purposely not tried to SEE for the sake of his dearest friend’s happiness. It is sickening to watch, although Sherlock can’t say if it is Mary making him so nauseated or the fact that he probably most definitely has a concussion. 

Whichever it is, John’s stance doesn’t change as Mary’s demeanor shifts; John is still standing in front of him, standing so close he is between Sherlock’s legs where they are tied to the legs of the chair, and he is still holding Sherlock’s face against his body. The tension pulls and makes his bound hands burn and his ribs stab, but John is holding him protectively, breathing hard, his gun pointed directly at his murderous wife. Sherlock wants to cry with relief. He might already be.

“Don’t.” Is all John says. He gently kneads at the back of Sherlock’s head, such a contrast to the way his muscles are coiled, ready to strike, and the guttural growl of his voice.

“John, please, please…I’m doing this for you, for us!” Mary’s eyes fill with crocodile tears as she looks at them. Blood is puddling around her leg on the concrete.

“You have never once, not once, done anything for ME.”

“John, we can be free of this, have everything...you’d never have to worry again in your life! We could leave, run, be free and safe and happy!”

“I’m not going anywhere. If I’d known…” John inhales hard. “If I’d known, I’d have never followed you anywhere to begin with.” John pulls Sherlock ever so slightly closer as he speaks. He starts to lower the gun. “And somehow I think you’ll be the one worried about being _safe_.”

“You’ll regret it,” Mary’s voice shifts again, shifts into the cold steel Sherlock had heard before John swept in to save him, again. “Do you really think he’ll be what you need? Do you think he won’t destroy you again? That _thing?_ That it can love? That it won’t run off and leave you behind without a second thought—”

John’s arm lifts and the SIG *cracks* a third time. A red hole appears between Mary’s eyes and she jerks, once, then falls cleanly to the side. John’s arm blocks Sherlock’s view of her body as it comes around his neck, gently cradling him closer.

He holds him tightly to his chest for several long minutes, bowed over Sherlock in the chair. More than anything, Sherlock wishes he could wrap his arms around John too, but they are still bound tightly behind his back to the rungs of the chair. It hurts.

“Alright,” John sniffs, voice hoarse, after several long moments. “Alright.” He loosens his grip and takes a step back, then lowers himself to his knees in front of Sherlock and sets his gun on the floor. He must have retrieved it from behind Sherlock’s sock index.

Sherlock gingerly turns his head to look at Mary’s body, strewn out on the floor. “No. Look at me, Sherlock.” John’s voice is rough, but his small hands are remarkably gentle as they slide around Sherlock’s neck to his face, turning him to face John. His face is hard and furious, deep lines etched in his forehead and around his mouth. He looks terrifying. “Look at me.” He sounds even more terrifying.

“You’re—you’re b-bleeding,” Sherlock croaks, his voice barely a raspy whisper and his teeth chattering. He is still shaking, from cold or fear or sheer relief now, he doesn’t know.

“I’m fine,” John’s voice is steel through his teeth. The look on his face is chilling and exhilarating, but his thumb is so soft as it swipes through the wetness on Sherlock’s cheek. He is crying, then. “What did she do to you?”

“Your leg…” there’s a spreading stain of red on the outside of John’s thigh. 

“It’s nothing! Sherlock, what did they do?”

“I’m—I’m f-f-fine, John…” Sherlock isn’t fine, but John’s hands are so gentle on his face, a bit cold and clammy, but they’re touching him gently, through his tears and then reaching up to gently probe his split scalp, visible through his part. Sherlock hisses and jerks, pulling agonizingly on his arms. John flinches and moves his hands back to Sherlock’s face, stroking his cheekbones. He reaches back into his coat pocket and Sherlock mourns the loss of the touch, even though his other hand remains on his face.

“I’m going to check your pupils. How many of me do you see?”

“O-one. But you’re b-blurry.”

“Ok. That could be dehydration, but I’m fairly sure you’re concussed, too. This is gonna be bright,” John pulls out his phone and flicks on the flashlight function. He shines it in one eye, then the other, pursing his lips as Sherlock recoils in the bright light. “Even,” he flips the light off. “Are you dizzy? Nauseated?”

Sherlock nods. Somewhere in the distance a door bangs open and several sets of heavy footsteps enter the building. Mycroft. Finally. “How—how d-d-did you f-find me?” His blasted teeth won’t stop chattering.

“Mycroft,” John’s voice goes hard again. His hands remain gentle as they lightly probe at Sherlock’s ribs. Sherlock stifles a moan. “He knew where you were pretty quickly, rang me and traced your phone almost immediately after you set the alarm. I know we were expecting this, but not so soon..and not, well.” John doesn’t elaborate. He looks back at Sherlock’s face. “Not broken. You’ll be sore for a few weeks, though. No running around. He wanted me to wait.” John’s brows knit together. “I told him to go fuck himself.”

In spite of himself and the (glorious) pain he is in, Sherlock manages to quirk a smile. John smiles back, but is a dark smile, angry and a little sad.

“Anything in your legs hurt?” John runs his hands, still so gentle, down Sherlock’s thighs, squeezing briefly at his bony kneecaps.

“N-no.”

“Good,” John doesn’t sound particularly good, but he reaches up and pats Sherlock’s cheek, then stands. “I’m going to try to untie your hands. We’ll be here all day if we wait for your brother.”

“Prob-probably having d-difficulty r-r-rolling away from b-buffet,” Sherlock tries to joke. He already misses John’s face in front of him.

“Shush. I—oh, Christ!” John’s yell echos through the empty hall. “What did they do to your hand?”

“I-I don’t…s-someone w-wrenched it...”

“Fuck, Sherlock,” John swears, kneeling down behind him. He touches his hand, lightly, and pain rolls up Sherlock’s left arm. His stomach heaves.

“J-John!”

“I know, I know…I’m sorry,” John touches Sherlock’s shoulder briefly. “Two fingers, middle and ring. Broken in several places. Also the cord restricted blood-flow…” Sherlock hears the click of a switch-blade. “This is gonna hurt, Sherlock.”

John is right; as soon as he cuts the thick cords around Sherlock’s wrists, the rush of blood into both Sherlock’s hands causes a surge of pain to flood up his arms and down his spine. His flesh burns as if dipped in frying oil and two fingers on his right hand throb as if they’ve been slammed in a car door. He audibly retches, but there’s nothing in his stomach to come up. His ribs burn as his diaphragm violently contacts.

“Shhh…I know, I know,” John croons, his voice finally shifting from the hard flint it was into John’s voice: gruff and short, but still endlessly patient and kind. A doctor’s voice.. He stands and takes Sherlock’s right wrist, slowly moving it around to the front of his body. His muscles are stiff and spasm as they move. When John is back kneeling between Sherlock’s legs, he reaches behind him to guide his left arm around as well. “I know it hurts…it’ll get better as the blood flow returns. But these fingers don’t look good.”

“I want to g-go home, J-John…” He hurts. His arms hurt and his hand hurts and his head hurts, but mostly Sherlock’s chest hurts, the way John is looking at him, stone-faced but his eyes so soft and concerned. After he just shot his not-as-pregnant-as-everyone-thought wife between the eyes.

“I know, Sherlock, I want to go home too.” John rubs gently at his wrists. He’s never been so gentle, so tender, with Sherlock, even after Mary shot him. Even after Sherlock overdosed on the plane and he confessed how badly he wanted to come home, and made Sherlock promise to be there when he did. “But you’ll definitely need a trip to A&E. Maybe even observation overnight.”

“S-stay?”

“I’m not going anywhere, Sherlock.”

“N-no, John. Af-after. At Baker- St-st—” A shudder shakes Sherlock to the core. NOW he is cold, very cold.

“That’s what I meant, Sherlock. I can come home now,” John leans forward as Mycroft’s men finally reach them and swarm. John presses his forehead into Sherlock’s chest. His entire body sears with pain at just the slight pressure. “And I’m not letting anyone come near you again. Not ever again. You’re never leaving my sight.”

John’s voice is hard again, like a razor blade scraping over granite, and Sherlock hears the threat to no one and everyone who might hear. But, he also hears the tenderness under John’s menacing tone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Corrections provided by [thejohnwatson](http://thejohnhwatson.tumblr.com//). Thank you for picking up my slack, dear!
> 
>  
> 
> Also, SHAMELESS PROMOTION: follow me on tumblr if you are so inclined. [whimsicalethnographies](http://whimsicalethnographies.tumblr.com/)


	5. Oxycodone and bubblebaths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You could have at least procured some morphine. Oxycodone has the efficathy of generic ibuprofen.”
> 
> “Oh, is that why your eyes are so glassy?”
> 
> “I’m concuthed, John.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John POV

John watches as Sherlock tries to settle into his chair. He is very clearly _acutely_ uncomfortable, even with the painkillers John had simultaneously badgered and allowed the the attending to prescribe. He wouldn’t allow morphine in the flat, so the doctor reluctantly gave him 28 capsules of oxycodone, which John pointedly informed Sherlock he was keeping control of. 

John would have preferred they keep him overnight, but Sherlock was quite distraught, doing his best to upset everyone and everything they tried to do to him. Of course, Sherlock was a miserable patient on the best of days, but throw a concussion in the mix and he was downright unbearable.

The wait for the ambulance had been impossibly long, exacerbated by Mycroft materializing out of thin-air behind where Sherlock was slumped in the wooden chair, leaning against John’s side and very clearly trying not to vomit all over their shoes.

_“State?”_

_John rolled his eyes and rubbed his thumb up and down Sherlock’s neck. “Concussion, split scalp, nasty fractures of the second and third metacarpals and proximal phalanges. Some bruised ribs.”_

_“Should he remain sitting up?” Mycroft’s umbrella tapped against the concrete floor. The sound was almost lost amongst the clamoring of his response team, who John had the distinct feeling there were no official records of._

_“It’s not ideal, but I’d rather not put him on the concrete.” John turned to eye him; Sherlock flinched as it jostled his mangled hand, clutched against his chest. “You could use the influence of the British Government to get an actual medical team here.”_

_“Estimated time of arrival, two minutes. He’ll be airlifted to Royal London.”_

_“Airlifted?” Sherlock slurred, hissing as he tried to shift in his chair._

_“Mmmm. I didn’t want to take any chances, not knowing what condition Dr. Watson would find you in.”_

_“Piss off, Mycroft.”_

_“My apologies, little brother, for the overall delay of action. Mrs. Watson--” John shuddered at the name-- “disabled the cameras I’d placed in the entryway, so while we could track your location, it was rather difficult to predict what the situation would be. I should have placed cameras directly in the flat. Although I must admit,” Mycroft walked around to stand in front of them, his face set but his eyes uncharacteristically soft. “I’m glad Dr. Watson...took matters into his own hands, shall we say. And I personally apologize for your injuries, Dr. Watson.”_

_“Injuries?” Sherlock shifted again, this time to try and look up at John. John frowned; while short term memory lapses were very common for concussed persons with minor shock, he couldn’t stop his mind from running away with more emergent traumatic brain injuries: coup contrecoup, cerebral hemorrhage, epidural hematoma…_

_“I’m fine, Sherlock, I told you. Just a strongarm with terrible aim and a graze. Sit still.”_

_“Terrible criminal mastermind,” Sherlock mumbled, slumping against John’s side again. “Jim would have been much more thorough.”_

_“Lucky for us, she was quite arrogant and thought far too highly of her abilities. As far as I can tell, she was the only individual of importance...you were to be sold to a someone you--" Mycroft pauses, "irked some years ago. I can easily dispose of him.”_

_“Yes, lucky,” John looked around. Mary’s body was crumpled on the ground in a pool of blood leaking from her head and calf. Her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. “And could you take care of that?” He nodded towards the body._

_“That team shall arrive shortly as well. I assume disposal can be at my discretion?”_

_“Please.”_

_“As I expected. Although you have my condolences, in every respect, if you would like them. Ah,” he turned and looked towards the front of the building they were in. “Here’s the helicopter now.”_

_Sure enough, a few moments later, a group of medics came briskly into the space, pushing a gurney._

_“I will leave you to their care, brother mine, and make my way to hospital. Ensure your care is properly arranged to cause as little trauma to you...or the staff,” He looked at John and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Again, Dr. Watson, thank you. I’ll arrange for you to have full control of any medical decisions that need to be made. We’ll debrief when Sherlock has sufficiently recovered; I'll ensure our cyber friend is disposed of as well. Please, let me know if you require anything.”_

_“Mycroft.”_

_The paramedics swarmed them, blocking Mycroft’s retreating form from view. One young woman attempted to shift John out of the way, and while he let go of Sherlock’s shoulders, he wouldn’t allow her to manhandle him away._

_“No,” he said pointedly. “I’m his physician. And his proxy.”_

_“An oxygen mask? Oh for Godssakes, no!” Sherlock waved away an older gentleman who had descended on his with a face mask. He froze and grimaced, reaching for John’s jumper with shaky fingers._

_“Just, back up,” John said to the small group. “He has a probable concussion and a broken hand, minor shock and dehydration. Maybe some hypothermia. A blanket and a hydration drip should be sufficient.” He looked at Sherlock. “Can you stand?”_

_“Yes,” Sherlock snapped, but definitely needed John’s help to rise up from the chair. Gingerly, they made their way over to the gurney, where a severe looking woman and a kid who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five guided him down and began strapping him in place. Sherlock sighed when his head hit the pillow between the restraints. “You’re coming?” He grimaced when one paramedic gently shifted his shattered hand on his chest to accommodate the straps._

_“I’m right here,” John took Sherlock’s uninjured hand and twined their fingers together._

_“You’re injured?” The older gentleman with the oxygen mask pointed to John’s thigh._

_“I’m fine. Let’s get him on his way.”_

John watches Sherlock twist and push back in his chair, trying to find the best position. It’s amazing how a creature so presently quiet could make as much noise as he did when in a hospital room. 

The helicopter ride was blissfully short. The time in hospital was not. Thankfully they’d attached a morphine drip--after the CT and MRI showed no evidence of skull fracture or bleeding--to his heated IV before they set the bones in his hand. Unfortunately, while it dulled the pain it appeared to exacerbate Sherlock’s irritability, and he tried to jump off the bed when the trauma attending cut up the leg of John’s jeans to look at his thigh. Sherlock had refused to release his hand, necessitating John be garbed up while they stitched Sherlock’s scalp closed, and that John himself be attended to at Sherlock’s bedside. 

_“Sherlock! Down. It’ll be stitches and a tetanus jab.”_

And that’s all it was. So after six hours, John speaking with four different attendings, interference from Mycroft, and a prescription for oxycodone, they were finally released into a sleek black car to head back to Baker Street.

Sherlock looks awful. His hair is still stuck together with blood and betadine, and the entire left side of his face is swollen and a violent shade of purple. His chest and back are mottled with bruises under the t-shirt John had helped him into. John’s Union Jack pillow is on the armrest of Sherlock’s chair, cushioning his arm. His mangled hand is up in the air, tightly wrapped and splinted. The orthopaedist had warned them that he’d eventually require therapy, and the fingers might never again be straight. At least there was no nerve damage they could find. 

“You look awful,” John sits in his chair, wriggling his rear into the soft, worn cushion. He sets the tumbler of whiskey on the small table. His leg will make do with paracetamol--it burns but not excessively--but he quite thinks he deserves a stiff drink.

“Tho do you,” Sherlock sneers, finally finding a position that is unoffending. He’s been lisping in earnest since the morphine bolus.

“How’s the hand?” John takes a sip of his whiskey. Sherlock, on account of the morphine and oxycodone, isn’t allowed any.

“It hurts more than being thot. More than therbian torture. There’s a newly tharpened knife in the drawer next to the fridge; cut it off, John.”

“And miss nursing the most miserable patient to ever live back to full capacity? Not a chance,” John chuckles darkly, and examines his glass. It’s slightly smudged in the light of the small fire he built; he should have cleaned it before pouring, but he really can’t be arsed to care. The whiskey is warm and heavy down his throat.

“You could have at least procured some morphine. Oxycodone has the efficathy of generic ibuprofen.”

“Oh, is that why your eyes are so glassy?”

“I’m concuthed, John.” 

John laughs in earnest. Sherlock high on painkillers--fully legitimately--is a cranky, lispy mess that John has very secretly always found adorable, if a massive pain in the arse. He still has video from three years ago of Sherlock after a root canal squirreled away on his laptop.

“You are, Sherlock. And it took everything I had to get you released to my care, even though I’d have felt better if you stayed overnight. Two very good reasons you’ll have to live with oxycodone.”

Sherlock grunts.. “You could at least let me have a thip of your thcotch.”

“Nope,” John takes another swig. “Believe it or not, I rather need this right now.”

“Yeth,” Sherlock is suddenly very solemn, only lisping a little. “I can imagine you do.” He pauses. “I’m thorry, John.”

John is silent for several long seconds, watching Sherlock. “For what?”

“For everything, but thith moment, for not theeing the exact depth of the lieth.”

“I had a feeling. Just little things, all piled one on top of the other...I can’t say that I knew, but, it’s not a surprise. Not really.”

“Quite depraved. The child being someone elthe’th, or even yourth, designed ath a contingenthy plan, but even that appeared too far-fetched for…” Sherlock pauses, squinting into the fire and looking for all the world as if he’d just completely lost his train of thought.

“Stop trying to think, Sherlock,” John chuckles. “That enormous brain needs to rest.”

“I’ve been concuthed before John. Many timeth, in fact.”

“Then you know not to overwork it.” John sighs, and lifts his glass. He examines the liquid, dark, warm amber against the light. “I don’t regret it, you know. It’s better than she deserved,” John looks directly at Sherlock. His eyes glint in the firelight. “We knew it was going to end this way, didn’t we? Mycroft obviously, but we did too. How else could it have?”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock tries to lower his swollen right hand and hisses. Back up it goes. “I don’t really care about the bulk of it after the alarm was tripped, but can I ask what thith contingenthy wath code-named? Mycroft loves his code-names.”

“’Grace.’”

“Surprithingly fitting.”

“I thought so....he would tell us if there was more? If it wasn't just some arsehole who wanted revenge and was willing to pay for it?” 

Sherlock looks pensive for a moment, or as pensive as he can look with half his face swollen twice its normal size. "Yeth, I think he would. Even if I wish it weren't so bathe ath money and revenge." 

"Good." John lifts his eyes and looks at Sherlock again, and for a moment his face looks light, and young, the lines on his forehead and around his mouth softening. He looks like the Sherlock John met almost five years ago, carefree for the first time in years. Curious and new and as if a door had suddenly opened. He looks…hopeful. Wary, but hopeful. And strikingly beautiful, even with the swelling and bruising. 

Sherlock watches him with slightly fuzzy eyes, and when he sighs, John feels his heart squeeze in his chest. “You are going to feel like shit in the morning.”

“Tho are you, with your leg.”

“I’ll live.”

“I may actually not. In fact, if you wouldn’t obviouthly be faster on account of my being in agonithing pain and medicated, I’d thimply plunge my hand into the fire and be rid of the damn thing.”

“If you attempt it, you’re going back to hospital.”

“You have an awful bedthide manner,” Sherlock rolls his eyes dramatically, but there’s a small smile on his face.

“I bet that hurt.”

“Which thing in particular, John? It all hurtth.”

“Ha ha,” John genuinely laughs. “At least your mouth still works.”

They sit in silence for several long minutes, John sipping his scotch and Sherlock staring at him, the fire, and the rest of the sitting room as if he’d never seen it before. 

“You thould have another,” Sherlock finally says when John sets his empty glass down with a *clunk*. “And make one for me, too.”

“You are terribly transparent when invalided. And no.”

“Awful,” Sherlock scowls, shaking his head and grimacing at the motion. “I have to pith.” He announces.

“You just went.”

“IV hydration, John.”

“Yes, well. Let me get cleaned up first,” John clears his throat and tries not to smile outright. “You need sleep. And a bath. Let me shower and grab my things, then we’ll get you clean and settled and into bed.” He stands. Mycroft had clothes and his laptop and several other important belongings delivered to Baker Street while they were in hospital. John doubts he’ll need to ever go back again; he can just buy new things. Everything important is already here.

“We? I can surely bathe and put mythelf to bed.”

“Interesting, as you couldn’t walk yourself up the stairs or dress yourself or flop yourself in your chair,” John steps closer. “Stay right there, I’ll be back in ten.”

“Where on earth could I go, John?” Sherlock tries to wave his hands as he always does when emphasizing to John how he’s being an idiot, apparently forgetting _again_ the state his right is in. His expression is one of agony and irritation at his own forgetfulness. 

“You’ve done crazier things in worse conditions.”

Then, before John changes his mind and before Sherlock can yank (although he really probably can’t) his arm away, John bends his head and presses his lips to the top of two entirely wrapped, splinted, shattered fingers. Sherlock jerks and rears, then downright hisses at John. 

John just laughs, really truly laughs for the first time in what feels like forever, staring down at Sherlock while he grips his forearm and glares. Adorable indeed.

“I still have to uthe the loo.”

“Ten minutes, your highness,” John runs his fingers through Sherlock’s dirty curls, careful to avoid the line of sutures, then grabs his duffel off the floor and heads back to the shower.

****

Bathing Sherlock Holmes is remarkably like bathing a 12-stone drunk toddler who decides to pick that very moment to be concerned with modesty. 

“Oh, please,” John chuckles as he turns to drop the lid on the toilet. “I’ve come home to you sprawled arse-naked asleep on the sofa. This is just another day in Baker Street.”

Sherlock glares at him as he gingerly slips his good thumb under the waistband of his pyjama pants. John has already removed his dressing gown and t-shirt, now hanging on the hook behind the door. 

“I’m tired and injured and in pain, John. Excuthe me if I’m not thrilled to be bathed like a child.”

“Well, I’m not letting you get in and out of that monstrosity by yourself with one arm and a concussion,” John doesn’t want to admit it now, when he’s nursing a very injured--and horribly bruised, his chest seems to be growing darker by the minute--Sherlock, but the air does feel different, especially knowing they seem to be on the other side. He pushes the long lingering feelings down ( _not now, Watson)_ , and gestures to the water. “Check the temperature first.” He turns to face the tiled wall. “Let me know when your pants are off.”

He hears a quick splash of water and the rustling of soft cotton slowly make it’s way down Sherlock’s legs to the floor, as well as the crinkling of the plastic bag he’d carefully taped around Sherlock’s right hand. 

“Done.”

“Alright, here,” John turns back, resolutely keeping his eyes directly on Sherlock’s face. “Careful.”

Sherlock’s cheeks color adorably under his bruises, and his newfound sense of modesty clearly makes him want to dive into the old, claw-foot tub. Of course, it is less _diving_ and more _John gingerly holding his good hand as he wobbles over the edge and then John helping him down._ Sherlock immediately huffs and curls in on himself on the water. “Is the temperature alright?”

“It’th fine,” Sherlock grumbles, looking at the water in front of him. John has used oil and bubbles--left from when he packed in a despairing hurry after Sherlock jumped--mostly to be soothing, but also a little bit to irritate him. “I’d prefer a thower.”

“Not with a concussion and one hand, Sherlock! Besides, you can’t get the sutures wet until tomorrow.”

“The pillow will be covered in blood and antitheptic.”

“I’ll wash it.”

Sherlock swats at a large bubble irritably, splashing water over the edge of the tub. But his muscles noticeably relax and his shoulders unbunch from around his ears. Gingerly, he lays his injured hand on the edge of the tub.

“Feel good?” John asks gently, turning to grab a flannel from the cabinet.

“Yeth,” Sherlock mumbles, clearly irritated that the water feels good. 

“Rosemary and lemon.” John kneels on the tile floor next to the tub.

“Ridiculouth.”

“That’s why I did it, you dick head. Here,” John holds out the flannel. “Think you can manage to wash yourself?”

Sherlock’s cheeks turn impossibly red again and he ducks his eyes. “John, I’m not a complete invalid,” Sherlock reaches over and grabbed his bottle of body wash off the metal shelf on the wall. He is clearly struggling not to groan. He looks at the bottle for a moment, then sighs an incredibly put-out sigh. “Although I would appreciate your help opening the bottle.”

John guffaws—actually guffaws—his laugh echoing across the tile in the warm bathroom. It feels so incredibly good to laugh for real, even if he is bathing his 12-stone, drunk toddler. “Here,” he takes the bottle from Sherlock and flips it open. John dips the flannel near Sherlock’s feet, then pours some on. “I don’t know where you think you get off saying my bath bubbles are ridiculous, when your soap costs as much as my shoes. Wash yourself down. I’m going to turn the kettle on, and I’ll be back.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock grumbles and takes the prepared flannel from John to attempt to clean himself.

“Yeah,” John chuckles. “Don’t get crazy and drown yourself until I get back.”

By the time Sherlock acquiesces to get out--he clearly enjoyed his bath much more than he was willing to let on--his chamomile is finished and his fingers are pruny and his eyes are very noticeably clearer. To John’s experienced eyes, he is also obviously in an increasing amount of pain as John helps him dry off and dress.

“Come on,” John pulls back the coverlet and silky smooth sheets. “In. I’ll get a pill.”

“Get ten, John,” Sherlock moans as he slowly lowers himself to the mattress and slides down.

“Here, scoot over a bit,” John motions for Sherlock to shift closer to the center of the bed, then grabs the pillow from the chair in the corner. “Rest it on this. There you go.” John pulls the covers up, gently tucking them around Sherlock’s chest. “Be right back.”

John pads into the kitchen and pops two pills out of the blister packet, as well as some paracetamol for himself. It should be enough to let him sleep. As for where John will sleep, he’s already decided, but the butterflies in his stomach seem less so. It’s practical, of course; Sherlock may need him. And it’s not like he’s never slept there before, he did the night Sherlock came down from his high, when he’d stated his intent to come home. They’d both needed that comfort on that night.

But now that he is home, does that make it different? He obviously wouldn’t try anything, for numerous reasons, the chief two being that he doesn’t even know where Sherlock stands on the matter and the fact that he will shortly be high as fuck again. Sherlock will surely understand the practicality of it. He may even prefer it. And if Sherlock objects he can always kip on the floor.

But also, after the events of the past two days, he _wants_ to be there, even if only to feel the heavy warmth of him near. To remind himself that Sherlock is there, he made it home, and maybe finally, finally, they were looking towards a new day.

“John?” Sherlock calls from the bedroom.

“Yes,” John shakes himself and grabs a glass to fill with water. He heads back into the bedroom. “Sorry, damn blister packs. Here.” He hands Sherlock the pills, then guides the glass to his lips. Sherlock swallows and smiles, his bruised face open and soft in the low light. John pops his own pills in his mouth, takes a deep swallow of the lukewarm water, and sets the glass on the bedside table. “I think I should--”

“Stay.” Sherlock finishes for him, settling back into the mattress. He closes his eyes. “I may need you, and I doubt my ribs capable of expanding enough to yell. Plus then I’d have to wait.”

“Right,” John touches the top of his head gently and flicks off the bedside lamp. He pads around to the left side of the bed, the only light in the room a sliver of blue from between the curtains. This time, he lifts the covers and crawls under, groaning as he sinks into the luxurious mattress. He lays his head on the pillow and closes his eyes with a sigh as pulls the soft sheets and coverlet up to his chest.

“How’th your leg?” Sherlock’s voice rumbles next to him. He’s slurring slightly again, for which John is glad. He needs to sleep.

“Incredibly sore.” It’s true, although he hasn’t paid it much mind. He’s had much worse.

“Will you be able to thleep?”

“Yes, so long as you stop talking,” John reaches over blindly and pats Sherlock’s hand where it rests between them on top of the sheets. “Go to sleep, Sherlock.”

“‘M glad you’re home,” Sherlock sighs a great sigh.

“Me too, Sherlock,” John smiles. “Now please go the fuck to sleep.”

They both sleep for almost ten hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *coup contrecoup is a little known diagnosis for something not that uncommon: when there’s a brain injury, and an injury under the point of impact (coup injury) AND on the other side where the force cause the brain to shift and smush into the opposite inside wall of the calvarium (contrecoup injury).
> 
>  
> 
> Corrections provided by [thejohnwatson](http://thejohnhwatson.tumblr.com//). Thank you for picking up my slack, dear!
> 
>  
> 
> Also, SHAMELESS PROMOTION: follow me on tumblr if you are so inclined. [whimsicalethnographies](http://whimsicalethnographies.tumblr.com/)


	6. Salted caramel gelato and dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s not a waltz, I know,” he says, voice low, “but I was shite at that anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock POV
> 
>  
> 
> Corrections provided by [thejohnwatson](http://thejohnhwatson.tumblr.com//). Thank you for picking up my slack, dear!
> 
>  
> 
> Also, SHAMELESS PROMOTION: follow me on tumblr if you are so inclined. [whimsicalethnographies](http://whimsicalethnographies.tumblr.com/)

His ribs ache and the sutures in his scalp burn and his hand, his hand can’t even be described as a hand anymore. The nerve block and morphine wore off during the cab ride home last night, and while John has procured oxycodone, it is on the whole, ineffective.

Sherlock understands why John doesn’t what morphine in the flat, he does, even if he’d never admit it out loud. But this moment right now, he wants it. Oh, he wants it to dull the pain and to cloud his mind.

The lump of flesh and bone at the end of his arm sears and sizzles and thuds where it is resting on the pillow John laid it on before slipping into his bed. It throbs with every beat of his heart, somehow burning and buzzing and numb and exquisitely sensitive at the same time; his mangled fingers feel as if they are going to pulse out of the splits and wraps, press out of the bandages and explode across the bedroom. 

And John is no longer in the bed beside him, having risen approximately twenty minutes prior. He wants to cry out, to yell for John to bring him more pills and tea and maybe pick up some morphine on the way, and to lie back down in the bed with him for the rest of the day.

But he doesn’t know where John is right now. Not physically, he’s clearly just outside the room, alternating between the kitchen and the loo, but where he _is._ In light of being back in Baker Street. In light of having spent the night in his bed, for the second time. So while he wants to call out to John, to demand he come back and lie with him while he has an epic sulk--he is due for one, after all--he doesn’t know how John will respond to that. Sherlock doesn’t do these things. He doesn’t want to push or exasperate John.

Because that would start a “thing.” And for maybe the first time he can recall, Sherlock doesn’t particularly want to start A Thing, not now. Not with John where he belongs, in the kitchen, in his chair, back at Baker Street with Sherlock.

Home. John is home. And he isn’t (probably, maybe, oh God Sherlock has never prayed before but he is going to pray now) leaving when Sherlock is recovered enough to dress and bathe himself. He said himself, almost a month ago. He wanted to come home.

Sherlock’s eyes burn and he angrily blinks a few times. It is the lingering oxycodone, and the pain. That’s all it is. 

It isn’t the fact that John has just saved him—again—in every way it is possible to save someone. It isn’t the fact that John held his hand tightly in the helicopter en route to hospital, and then sat with him, for nine and a half hours, in the small bay in hospital, waiting for the MRI to come back and the heated saline drip to finish. Or how he squeezed Sherlock’s elbow while they reset the bones in his fingers, even if they’d already started the morphine drip which absolutely had not started working by then, not saying a single word about the tears that squeezed out of Sherlock’s eyes and resolutely refusing to leave when Sherlock grew more agitated by the minute, even if it meant the resident had to cut up John’s jeans and suture John’s own leg while he was sitting there. It isn’t because John had screamed down two consultants and then finally broke down and called Mycroft for back-up (he has his uses), insisting a minor concussion, stitches, two broken fingers, bruised ribs, and some slight hypothermia were well within John’s scope of practice and that they were leaving once the warm IV had finished, even if he agreed with them, because Sherlock couldn’t bear to stay in hospital. It isn’t that his voice was the same voice Sherlock had heard when he was tied bloody and broken to a wooden chair: furious and terrifying, but tinged with an affection Sherlock wondered how he could have missed for the last five years. It isn’t that he’d teased him and smiled at him while he scolded then bathed him and put him to bed, as if there wasn’t anything else he’d have rather been doing or anywhere else he’d have rather been. It most certainly isn’t because Sherlock could still smell the scent of John’s jumper, laundry soap and sweat and gunpowder, or still feel how John had gently stroked Sherlock’s hair in the helicopter, avoiding the gash in his scalp and gently pulling apart curls stuck together with dried blood.

And it definitely, absolutely, positively is NOT because almost twenty hours ago, John had shot his wife between the eyes, for daring to refer to Sherlock as something that would once again let him down. 

It has to be the pills. And the pain. Sherlock is pretty sure he’s felt worse pain and been in worse shape, he knows he has, but—

John slept on the far side of Sherlock’s bed that night, careful not to touch or jostle, but in his bed. His hand was close to Sherlock’s, resting in the space between their bodies, the entire night.

Sherlock had observed John’s eyelashes dance while he dreamed. Or he thinks he did. He may have been asleep. And he wants John to come back in the room but he has no idea how to go about doing that, when--

“Hey,” John pokes his head through the door.

Sherlock jerks in surprise, pain rolling down his abdomen, shooting back up his spine and down his right arm. A pitiful moan in a voice his ears don’t recognize escapes his mouth.

“Whoa, lie still,” John is next to the bed in two strides lopsided strides, gently laying his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. It’s warm through the thin cotton of his t-shirt. “I thought I could hear you sulking in here, did I wake you?”

“No,” Sherlock exhales through grit teeth. “I was thinking.”

“I told you not to do that.”

“And you know I can hardly stop.” Sherlock sighs. “Help me up.”

John smiles and holds out his hand. It’s murder for Sherlock to twist and reach over his left arm, but John’s hand is so warm and strong he can almost ignore the stabbing throughout his body and he slowly maneuvers himself to sitting, John’s left hand gently supporting his back.

His head swims when he’s upright, and waves of nausea flow over him. Oh, how he hates concussions. 

“Slow. Take a minute.” John rubs his back lightly, fingertips dancing up and down his spine. It’s magical. 

“I’m fine. Or at least I will be when I have some more narcotics.”

“You’re due for two. How about you take them, then we can wash your hair?”

Sherlock feels his cheeks flush hot. The bath last night had been pleasant enough, and also distinctly mortifying as John had helped him bathe his battered, broken body. He’d obviously seen Sherlock is all manners of undress before, that was nothing new, but the heavy, fluttering feeling that accompanied it that time had been new. New and wonderful and positively unbearable. Sherlock can only be grateful that his body had been fully incapable of revealing some of the more...undisclosed feelings he’d had.

“If you think we can,” Sherlock chokes, eyes closed. His voice sounds high and strangled, and while John is certainly an idiot, he is less of an idiot than most and will surely notice. 

“We can do it in the sink,” John chuckles, and removes his hands. Sherlock hates the way his skin burns where John was touching him, reminding him that John is in fact _no longer_ touching him. “Frankly, I don’t have the energy to go through the entire ordeal again just now.”

“Neither do I,” Sherlock inhales deeply and opens his eyes. They hurt, terribly so, in the bright light through the curtains. It’s take a moment for them to focus, but when they do John is a solid, strong figure in front of him. He is dressed comfortably in worn jeans and that hideous oatmeal jumper. His feet are bare and he needs a shave. The bandage on his thigh is lumpy under his jeans. But he is John, and he is wonderful. “How is your leg?”

“Fine,” John shrugs, leaning more heavily on his left leg than his right. “I mean it’s miserable, but I think you’re in a much worse sort of way.”

“Obviously.”

“Take a minute, then we’ll try washing your hair,” John turns and walks over to the door. “I’ll put the kettle on.” He stops and rests a hand on the doorframe. “You’ll feel much better, I bet.”

“Highly doubtful!” Sherlock yells after him as he heads back into the kitchen.

****

John is right, of course. John is always right and it’s boring and hateful and wonderful. His fingers had gently combed through Sherlock’s matted curls as he rested over the large sink in the loo, carefully avoiding his sutures and rubbing gently at his scalp. The warm water he’d poured over his head had been positively delightful. When it was all finished, Sherlock felt nearly human.

But that wasn’t the most interesting part of the entire affair. After he’d finished and washed the blood and betadine down the drain, and after he’d gently patted Sherlock head with a towel, then led him to his leather chair in the sitting room--the Union Jack pillow was still resting propped against the right armrest--and after he’d announced Sherlock _was going to eat some toast_ , he’d kissed him. 

John just leaned right over--a bit wobbly, admittedly--and pressed his lips to the top of Sherlock’s damp, curly crown, still carefully avoiding the suture. He’d just kissed the crown of his head. As if it was something he did every day. Then he announced something about an “electric razor” and “veritable sword” that Sherlock couldn’t really hear because _John had kissed him_.

Hours later, now that Sherlock is hibernating on the sofa and after John had spent a full twenty minutes giggling like a child watching Sherlock attempt to shave with his left hand and his old electric razor, and then immediately announced he was going to the shops, Sherlock is still trying to wrap his head around it.

John told him not to think, but he just can’t help it. Surely it can’t possibly mean what Sherlock is desperately trying not to hope it means. John is back, and he is happy to be back. Relieved. Glad that the long nightmare is finally over. And perhaps he’s taking the relief out on Sherlock in unintended ways; they’ve always been unconventional, afterall. So close it’s almost uncomfortable. For other people. Sherlock will never be uncomfortable with John’s presence, especially after not having it for over three years. They are family. Sherlock certainly considers John his family, the most important person in his life. He’d underestimated John before, and it had been a grave mistake. Obviously John cares deeply for him. If he didn’t he wouldn’t save Sherlock and look after him and scold him to eat and sleep and watch in near hysterics while Sherlock fumbles with an electric razor.

But that has to be it. Not that Sherlock is upset by that fact. Having John at all is more than Sherlock ever expected.

A warm hand suddenly shakes his bare foot. “Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s eyes pop open, and his body _almost_ jerks upright on instinct, but the injuries in his abdomen and inside his skull prevent that; he kind of shakes and his back arches a bit, and he manages a fairly pitiful moan.

“John…” he groans, trying to cover his face as pain rolls through his body, but mostly just effectively punching himself in the nose with his monstrosity of a hand. “When will everything stop hurting?!”

“It’s been a day, you tit.” John lets go of his foot. “You alright? I’d been trying to wake you up for five minutes. Started to scare me a bit.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Sherlock opens his eyes. Of course they hurt. John is standing at the end of the sofa, an exasperated smile on his face.

“Right. ‘Thinking.’ You know, the last time I had a concussion all I did was nap and watch shit telly. Helped tremendously. Took some codeine and turned on one of those animal shows with the idiots who jump on crocodiles and hornets’ nests. Brilliant.”

“Obviously you’d think so, John. But your brain is highly different from mine. ‘Naps and shit telly’ will hardly be beneficial to mine.” Sherlock slowly maneuvers himself up to sitting. He has to lean over and squeeze his eyes shut when his head swims.

“Deep breaths,” John says quietly. Sherlock feels a hand rub his shoulder. It’s nice. “You know, we all injure the same, Sherlock.” His thumb rubs over the bump of his collarbone. “Let yourself heal. Don’t think about anything. Mycroft isn’t even going to bother us until I give him the go ahead. It’s alright to slow down a bit, Sherlock.”

Sherlock opens his eyes and slowly turns his head to look up at John. He’s illuminated against the (hateful) midday light coming through the curtains of the sitting room, the sun making his hair glow like a golden halo. His eyes are soft, eyebrows raised and mouth set in a line, his lips shrunk to almost nothing. The wrinkles Sherlock is sure he put there are quite evident on his forehead and around his eyes. He is radiating concern, and for maybe the first time, it doesn’t make Sherlock want to bristle and snark. He’d promised John, afterall. What would be a few more days of being overly careful? He’d go insane, obviously, but maybe John wouldn’t add any more worry lines to his face.

Sherlock sighs. “‘Shit telly?’”

“The shittiest.” John smiles. “I’ll make some tea; it’s about time for some more oxycodone. I’m sure we can find something awful to watch.” His fingers find their way into the curls at the back of Sherlock’s head. He is barely able to repress a shiver, but he can feel the hairs on his arms rise under his dressing gown.

“Nothing with cars.”

“Of course not,” John strokes through his hair a few more times, sweeping his curly fringe off his forehead, always so careful to ignore the stitches. “Lie back down, Sherlock.”

He does, settling his head on John’s Union Jack pillow and his right hand on his belly. John smiles at him before wobbling to the kitchen.

*****

He’s not entirely sure where he is, but there are flashes of light and the roar of gale force winds all around him. It’s hard to breathe; every breath is like a sear of fire down his throat. And he’s cold, so cold, but for an unending scorch of hot lead right under his sternum. The bullet is slow, so agonizingly slow, slowly pushing its way through his flesh and into his liver. But that’s not the worst of it. He can hear a laugh, a screeching, high-pitched laugh, and Sherlock turns as quickly as he can, looking for the source. It’s all around him, echoing over the impossibly loud wind. He can’t find it. He spins and spins, looking, but there’s nothing, no other person in this hellscape.

But there is a door, a heavy black door. Sherlock starts towards, it, ignoring the pain in his chest and how the fiery air is whipping up sand, or glass, pushing him back and cutting his skin to shreds. The door is so far, but he knows if he can get to it, if he can just make it to the door, he’ll be fine. 

“John!” Sherlock tries to call out, but gets a mouthful of glass and hot sand, burning and cutting the inside of his mouth. The laughing grows louder, more shrill, as the sand clumps in his throat, cutting off his air, and his vision swims as the throbbing in his chest grows stronger, overwhelming, and suddenly the laugh is right next to him, on top of him, choking him with the sand and he can’t go any further, he can’t get to the door--

“Sherlock!”

Sherlock jerks and his eyes pop open. Every centimeter of his body throbs, and the bullet wound in his chest stabs with every breath. The bed linens are oppressive, sticking to his skin, twisted around his legs. Sherlock has to get them off, has to get away, so he tries to kick, which does nothing but tangle him further and send sharp spikes of pain through his chest. He hears a pitiful sound that might have come from him.

“Sherlock!” A light flicks on and a warm hand comes to rest on his forehead. _John_. His right hand; he’s in the bed. Sherlock went to bed alone, nodding off after an oxycodone in his chair while John read a boring journal. “Sherlock.” A thumb vigorously strokes between his eyebrows. “Take a deep breath.”

Sherlock listens to that voice, so strong, and calm, and always right, always. His ribs ache as his chest expands.

“That’s it,” John rests his left hand on Sherlock’s sternum. “Hold it…” his fingertip taps lightly; Sherlock can’t be bothered to count how many times. “Ok, release.” Sherlock exhales hard. “Not so hard, Sherlock. Take another.” He does, shifting his eyes over to look at John where he’s leaning over him, his face and hair washed out in the harsh light of the bedside lamp, eyes gummy with sleep. Sherlock counts this time, five taps. “Out. That’s it.” His thumb strokes over Sherlock’s left eyebrow. “Is this is alright? Me touching you?”

Sherlock nods minutely, watching as John pulls his hand from his chest and reaches for his left wrist.

“Good,” John presses his fingertips against his pulse. “You were about to thrash yourself out of bed...reacted on instinct. Then you were already awake,” he shrugs. “Come on, more deep breaths.” 

Sherlock does as he’s told, trying to take deep, measured breaths as John counts his pulse. He can feel his heart throbbing against his ribs, watching John’s slight frown as he counts. He closes his eyes and tries to focus, on his breaths and John’s hand on his forehead. _A nightmare. Only a nightmare._

“Nightmare?” John asks gently, laying Sherlock’s left hand down on the bed. Sherlock opens his eyes again. John still looks washed out, but also soft and rumpled, his olive green t-shirt twisted around his torso, silvery-blond hair tousled. He’d been asleep. In Sherlock’s bed, again.

“Yeth,” Sherlock’s voice squeaks out with a lisp. He clears his throat, which also aches. Everything aches. “Yes,” he tries again as John reaches over him to pull his right hand gently up. It’s wrapped in the linen, which thankfully seems to have kept him from rolling over it.

“About anything in particular?” John lays his hand gently on his belly, then tugs the sheets out from under his legs, loosening the cocoon he’d inadvertently created. His hand is still on Sherlock’s forehead.

“No,” Sherlock exhales hard. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I’m sure you don’t need me to say it, but...it’s normal. It’s normal after, well…” John pauses, purses his lips, trying to find the right description for the very specific hell their lives have been. “After everything, I guess.” He smoothes Sherlock’s fringe back from his forehead, then removes his hand. Sherlock immediately misses it. “It’s over though, alright?”

Sherlock closes his eyes and nods. His eyes feel prickly again, which is far too many times in the past two days for his liking. He takes another deep, only slightly shaky breath. “I know.”

"I heard everything she said, Sherlock. All of it, and--I would have never. I know you never left because you wanted to. I would have known. And I would have found you," John pauses. "Alright?" he prompts when Sherlock doesn't immediately answer, the lump in his throat tightening again.

"Alright," Sherlock croaks, forcing the word out. 

“Good,” John shifts on the bed next to him. “Do you want some water? Something to eat?”

“No,” Sherlock opens his eyes to stare at the crack in the ceiling plaster. It’s been there since the day he moved in. “Just lay back down, please.”

He can’t see it, but Sherlock is fairly sure he can hear John’s smile. “Okay. I’m gonna turn the light out, okay?”

“Okay,” the light flicks off, plunging the room into darkness. It’s suffocating, even compared the harsh light from the lamp on the left-side nightstand. Sherlock feels John shift down until he is lying in the bed, but his limbs remain as tense as Sherlock feels. Perhaps he is now uncomfortable? Perhaps he is regretting attempting to sleep here again? Perhaps Sherlock’s anguish is kicking up old memories in the back of his mind, reminding him of the mess they were in, the mess he only ended up in because Sherlock had--

“You’re shaking,” John says softly, reaching over to lay a warm hand on Sherlock’s left wrist.

“S-sorry,” Sherlock realizes he is trembling in earnest, teeth starting to clatter.

“It is over, Sherlock,” John’s hand closes firmly around his wrist. “It is, I promise.”

“I know that,” Sherlock tries to snap, but in the heavy darkness of the bedroom, John next to him under the cover, the whole surreal situation, it comes out reedy and strangled. The walls he’d usually fortify when exposed like this seem to crumble and for the second time in the past month, since he stepped off the plane high as a kite, he truly has no urge to try and rebuild them. Whether he simply doesn’t have the energy, or he honestly doesn’t care, Sherlock doesn’t know. It doesn’t even seem to even matter.

“I hope so,” John’s thumb strokes over the top of his hand. “And I’m right here, I promise. It’s going to take time, but we can finally start to relax, breathe a little. I think we deserve that, yeah?”

“You do,” Sherlock’s voice trembles.

“ _We_ do, Sherlock.”

“I shouldn’t have--I was so stupid, I--” Sherlock turns his face away. John can’t see him in the darkness, he know he can’t, but the threat of real tears returning is overwhelming, and while he has no urge to hide anything from John anymore he is mortified, absolutely mortified that John would see him like this, weak and whimpering after something as ridiculous as a nightmare.

“Hey,” John releases Sherlock’s wrist and twists, sliding his right arm up under his pillow. He tips his forearm, imploring Sherlock to turn back to face him. Of course John knows. He refuses, squeezing his eyes shut and huffing. “Sherlock, come on.” John shifts up slightly, pulling his arm out and resting it on the pillow, practically cradling Sherlock’s head. His left hand settles on Sherlock’s chest.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock sniffs, still refusing to turn.

“You’re still going to listen to me,” John’s head shifts closer, and his arm bends, fingers coming to gently pull at Sherlock’s curls. He’s so close, and he smells like toothpaste and laundry detergent and the sun. “It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re on the other side, alright? Both of us. We’re both here. For the first time in a long time, we don’t have to worry about how we’re going to make it through tomorrow, because we know. Ok?”

Sherlock doesn’t turn around, or open his eyes--the tears would really fall if he did now--but he does nod into the pillow. The sutures in his head pull with his neck twisted so sharply, but he can’t bother to care because John’s fingers are twisting around a ringlet and his thumb is stroking a path of electricity along his sternum through his t-shirt.

John relaxes a little, still higher on the pillows than Sherlock is, but he sinks into the mattress. Sherlock feels his knee press into his thigh. The now-uncovered sutures on his thigh poke through both John’s shorts and Sherlock’s threadbare pyjama pants. “Ok,” he breathes, wriggling down a bit. “This alright?”

He doesn’t specify, but Sherlock knows he’s asking if Sherlock is alright _like this_ , pressed together like this. He nods again, still turned away and completely unable to trust his voice.

“Good,” John’s hand rubs in a circle on his chest while he twists and shifts a bit more, trying to get comfortable. “I’m right here if you need me. Try to sleep, Sherlock.”

Then Sherlock feels his lips, warm and dry, press firmly against his temple before he lays his head on the pillow behind him. For a few minutes it hurts to breathe. 

****

The (inexplicable, terribly confusing, absolutely amazing) kissing continues over the next two weeks while Sherlock moves through the worst of his recovery. 

Just after he’d been shot, and after he did nearly irreversible damage to himself by discharging himself against medical advice (“you didn’t discharge yourself, Sherlock, you snuck out and almost killed yourself!”), his convalescence was fuzzy but frantic, cushioned by copious amounts of morphine and the pressing knowledge that he had to figure out how to keep John safe from his murderous wife. It was intolerable, but very not boring. He never let himself believe John would stay, so he never let himself slip into the contentment of having John back by his side.

This is different. His brain is significantly slowed by the concussion, his every movement hampered by the lack of a useful dominant hand, and there is JOHN. John helping him and sitting in his chair across from him and yelling at him to eat before he “pries open his mouth with a tyre lever and crams it all in” like before, but now he is sleeping in his bed at night—save one night when he drank a bit too much and fell asleep on the sofa with the telly on—and he is KISSING HIM.

Not on the mouth, Sherlock has to remind himself. His head, mindful of the sutures, and his temple and once his cheek as he announced he was heading out to the shops. But it is different and strange and wonderful, and Sherlock’s brain is just too exhausted to try and understand it.

By Day Twelve of John Being Back at Baker Street, Sherlock is almost used to these new things. It almost makes being cooped up injured (and under Mycroft’s increased surveillance, even though he has yet to descend on them) bearable. He isn’t allowed to leave the flat on his own, isn’t permitted to experiment with anything noxious or inflammable and therefore interesting, he wasn’t even allowed to bathe on his own for the first week (“You will slip and crack the other side of that hard head open, Sherlock, and I swear to God I will leave you in that hospital this time!”). But when John tugs on the curls at the nape of his neck when he comes to sit on the sofa with him, or carefully scratched his scalp when he sat on the edge of the tub shampooing Sherlock’s hair, or gently presses his fingers under Sherlock’s t-shirt to palpate his bruised ribs, it makes his prison bearable. More than bearable.

It makes Sherlock wonder if perhaps he could have all these things for the rest of his life, which is terrifying. Because what if not?

On Day Thirteen, Sherlock finally (against his better judgement, but he honestly can’t help it) works up the nerve to try and reciprocate. Maybe. He thinks. He’s been thinking more recently, as his head clears. When John places his hand on his waist to guide him out of his way in the kitchen so he can examine the contents of the fridge, Sherlock reaches for that hand and squeezes, then…immediately pulls away and skitters out of the room to the sofa. 

John’s laugh follows him into the sitting room, warm and fond, and Sherlock turns into the pillow as his face burns red hot. John’s laugh is light and happy, not mocking in the least, and Sherlock wants more than anything to hear it forever. When John comes out of the kitchen a few minutes later, he announces to Sherlock’s back--his face is still pressed into a pillow--that he’s going to the shops. Sherlock hears something about milk and bread and something for dinner, then feels the pressure of John’s kiss against the back of his head.

The only problem is that Sherlock still has no idea what any of it means, even now that he’s able to think more clearly, which means that every bloom of warmth in his belly when John affectionately touches him is followed by a pang of fear and confusion. And, if Sherlock were to allow his mind to hope that maybe, maybe John is attempting to make some kind of “move” (Sherlock barely knows what a move would even entail), it is quickly followed by the crushing fear that John will find him lacking (because he is, after all, even Mary could see that and she was a psychopath) and everything they ever had would unravel. As much as Sherlock wants and craves (and unfortunately has started to come to expect in twelve short days; hateful) the attention, he is hit with such fear that occasionally he wishes it would just stop happening, to protect whatever future he is capable of having with John.

What if one time when he leaves, he doesn’t come back? If that were to happen, if John were to leave again, Sherlock knows he wouldn’t survive it. He wouldn’t want to.

John is back in 47 minutes, grunting and groaning that a stitch in his thigh popped walking up the stairs, and how he’s just going to pull the damn things out right now. Sherlock smiles into his pillow.

****

“Still looks pretty good,” John stands behind Sherlock’s chair and gently separates the the hair from around the gash in his scalp. “I was wondering if I should have let them go another few days, but it’s holding.”

Sherlock tries not to let his breath tremble when he exhales and John’s fingers stroke and comb through his curls. “They were starting to itch in earnest.” He doesn’t think his voice gives anything away.

“No pain?” John’s fingers are still combing through his hair, sweeping his fringe up then moving to stroke the curls on the back of the head.

“No,” Sherlock swallows. His left hand trembles as it holds onto the cold bowl of gelato resting on his thigh. “On the whole, my head feels much better than it did seventeen days ago.”

“You’re still not allowed to play with fire or poisons, Sherlock,” his hand drops down to his shoulder, thumb brushing against the back of his neck. “Not with one hand. We’ll see what the orthopaedist has to say about that on Wednesday.”

“Unless he can magically fix the shattered bones and remove this entire hateful mess, I honestly don’t care what he has to say.”

“She,” John’s fingers dip underneath the collar of his dressing gown and t-shirt and Sherlock shivers. “Cold?” His index finger presses into the nub of his seventh cervical vertebrae.

“The ice cream,” Sherlock croaks, dipping his head. His salted caramel gelato is starting to melt.

“Hmmm,” John doesn’t remove his hand. “She might be able to get you into a less...heavy cast.” John squeezes his neck and finally lets go, padding around to plop into his armchair. His limp is almost entirely gone. “You’re still not allowed to play with fire, though.” John settles into his chair with a sigh and reaches for his copy of the BMJ; Mycroft must have arranged for all of John’s postage to be delivered to Baker Street. There’s a bowl of gelato sitting on the small table next to him.

Sherlock can feel the ghost of John’s hand, in his hair, on the back of his neck. The spoon sitting in his bowl rattles slightly as his left hand trembles, but John simply flips open his journal and grabs his reading spectacles off the side table. The arms are silver and glint in the light of the sitting room. Sherlock watches, hypnotized as John slowly turns page after page, occasionally stopping to reach for his spoon and swallow a bit of gelato. Two pages, spoon, repeat. Once or twice he adjusts the glasses on his nose, pausing once to examine them against the light behind Sherlock, then wipe a smudge with the corner of his t-shirt.

They used to sit like this, before. Sherlock in his chair and John in his, in their pyjamas, on nights where there was no case on. They did it again when John was back home before Christmas, although the morphine made Sherlock considerably less lucid than he is now.

And during those times, John didn’t touch Sherlock or stroke him or press his mouth to his forehead or sleep next to him in his bed, ready with open arms and a soothing voice when Sherlock woke in a panic. He left after those times. He said he wouldn’t leave this time. That’s really all Sherlock dares to hope for. Even if everything stopped, if it went back to _before_ , he’d be happy. He’d be happy with that, John sitting in his chair and sleeping back in his old room and not touching him, so long as it meant he would do it forever.

“I’m awful,” Sherlock suddenly announces, breaking through the silence of the sitting room. He isn’t sure why he feels the need to say outloud what John surely already knows--it’s fairly obvious--or whether it’s a warning or an apology. 

“I know,” John looks blandly up from the journal he’s only partially reading. His dark blue eyes sparkle behind the glass of his spectacles. “Eat your ice cream, Sherlock. I had to take the bloody tube to get to that poncy shop to buy it, my leg is now killing me, and it’s melting.”

“It’s gelato,” Sherlock swallows hard, looking down at the bowl in his lap. “And I like it melted.”

John doesn’t answer, but when Sherlock looks up he sees that he is watching him, journal abandoned in his lap. His head is cocked to the side just slightly, and it’s endearing when he does it, not at all like the serpentine look Mary used to have when sizing him up. His finger taps and scratches on the arm of the chair, not quite anxious, but a bit fidgety, the thin line of his mouth a small smirk. 

Sherlock feels his face heat under John’s gaze. He’s not angry, or even really exasperated that Sherlock can tell, but there’s something defiant, as if he’s issuing a challenge to Sherlock, or maybe to himself. Sherlock looks back for a moment, then clears his throat awkwardly and clumsily lifts the spoon to his mouth with his left hand.

The gelato is sublime, salty and sweet, and he honestly can’t remember if he’d told John to get it, or if John had just remembered it was his favorite and decided to indulge him. To his surprise, John’s smirk transforms into a small smile, the corners of his eyes softening and his forehead relaxing.

“Alright,” John sighs as Sherlock manages to get a second spoonful in his mouth. Eating with one’s non-dominant hand is terribly difficult. He removes his glass and stands, folding a page over in his journal and setting it on the seat of his chair. He grabs the bowl and quickly shovels two remaining spoonfuls in his mouth, grimacing a bit. Sherlock wonders if the cold hit the filling in his lower second molar. “I’m off to bed. Finish that and then come in, please. You still need plenty of rest.”

And before Sherlock can answer, John leans down, one hand holding his empty bowl and the other gripping the arm of Sherlock’s chair, and presses his lips to the very center of his forehead. They’re cold from the ice cream and a bit sticky, John’s chin prickly against the bridge of his nose. (The last time, four days ago when he kissed his temple, his skin had been completely smooth, newly shaved.) He still smells like detergent and the sun.

“And rinse that, please. Don’t just throw it in the sink.” John ruffles Sherlock’s hair one last time, then pads into the kitchen to run the water into his bowl for a moment, before walking straight back to Sherlock’s bedroom, as he’d done for the past two weeks.

When Sherlock slips into the bedroom an hour later, teeth brushed and bowl rinsed--John had asked nicely, after all--John is asleep on the left side, his side, facing the opposite wall. When Sherlock slips under the covers on the right side, his side, John stirs and sighs, rolling onto his back. His hand brushes Sherlock’s in the space between them. 

****

“Oh, I’m allowed finally?” Sherlock looks up as John places a tumbler full of scotch on the coffee table in front of him.

“Oh, quiet,” John takes a sip from his own glass and meanders over to the table against the wall. “It’s been over eight hours since the last one, and you didn’t get a refill. Take a drink and savor the fact that you’re healing nicely.”

He is actually healing nicely, much to his chagrin. If there’s one thing Sherlock has always delighted in doing, it’s finding the misery in every situation and wallowing in it, and John or no John, that will never change.

The orthopaedist that morning was boring and hateful, and didn’t even have the decency to administer a nerve block before doing God knows what to Sherlock’s hand. Something about evaluating nerve damage, which for as much as it hurt while she removed the tighter bindings and palpated along his palm, Sherlock would wager most of his nerves were working fairly well. John hadn’t said a word while he jerked and gritted his teeth, trying to quell the nausea that flooded his entire body when his hand was unwrapped, a mottled shade of purple and green that throbbed and threatened to shake apart without the hard metal and medical tape to stabilize it.

But apparently searing pain and greenish purple skin is an indication that he is healing nicely, will most likely not need an operation, and means he can graduate to a smaller, sleeker brace that John was incredibly excited to find out was waterproof.

Then Dr. Sherlock-didn’t-bother-to-catch-her-name gave him a pill for the road, scheduled an appointment to see her and a physiotherapist in a month, and they were in a cab on their way back to Baker Street.

Now his hand is just throbbing lightly, and while he won’t get much use out of it for at least another month, maybe more, the hard plastic he’s encased in is much lighter and much less onerous, and much less itchy. John even said it matches most of his suits.

“Sherlock, you asked every night for a drink while you were taking the pills,” John is fiddling with something on his laptop at the table. His hair is glowing gold and silver in the light. “Drink your liquor, please.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes but reaches for the tumbler of scotch on the table, savoring the way he doesn’t have to swing his entire body to counterbalance an extra four pounds of metal and wood and medical tape attached to his right hand. His ribs are relatively pain free as well--they still twinge a bit here and there when he turns too quickly in bed--and he almost doesn’t want to blunt the sharpness in his head with drink now that it seems to be truly returning to him. But the scotch burns nicely down his throat when he swallows, and overall he feels good. 

Honestly, Sherlock thinks he may feel better than he has in over three years, all things considering. 

John stops fiddling with whatever boring thing he’s fiddling with and takes a large swallow of his scotch as well. He’s moving delightfully slowly; content and filled to the brim with take away Thai, his feet bare from the moment they returned to the flat. After dinner, Sherlock changed into his pyjamas and dressing gown after a shower (in which his hand was still useless but at least no longer wrapped in a plastic bag), but John is still in his jeans and a warm, soft jumper.

“Think I should start a fire?” John sets his glass back on the table and looks at the small fireplace.

Sherlock shrugs, takes another swig of scotch. “I’m certainly fine, unless you’re cold.”

“No, actually. I think the furnace is holding its own for once.”

“Mmmm,” Sherlock pulls his legs up onto the sofa--only the tiniest bit of pain in his side--and tents his hands under his chin as best he can. He can almost do it with this new brace; his ring and little finger aren’t encumbered and he can almost straighten them sufficiently, even if his index and middle finger are bent at a ludicrous angle. 

“You look ridiculous,” John says cheerfully several minutes later. Sherlock opens his eyes and looks over to see him still standing over by the table, hands on his hips but entirely relaxed.

“The whole thing is ridiculous, John. Don’t be tedious,” he curls his toes and looks back up at the ceiling. “But, needs must.”

“Right.”

John must have been searching for music on his laptop, because a few moments later some ridiculous pop song starts playing in the flat. Sherlock may have heard it before, but he doesn’t know who the artist is and frankly doesn’t care. It isn’t entirely awful, though. He feels a hand on his shoulder and opens his eyes to find John standing over him, right hand held out.

“Come on.”

“I just sat down.”

“I know, but I’d like you to stand up again, you git,” John smiles his most fondly exasperated smile; Sherlock’s stomach flutters a bit for some reason.

“Why?”

John chuckles and rolls his eyes, but reaches out and takes Sherlock’s left hand. His fingers feel like they always do: warm and calloused and like a burst of electricity. He tugs lightly, imploring Sherlock to unfold his long legs and stand up off the sofa. John squeezes Sherlock’s hand and starts toward the empty center of the living room.

“What are you doing?” 

“Just, come on,” John pulls Sherlock around the coffee table, and when they’re out of reach of all the furniture, turns to face him, raising his their clasped hands to the level of his shoulder. Sherlock suddenly feels like the floor is tilting beneath them.

“John…”

“Just relax, Sherlock,” he circles his right arm around Sherlock’s waist, pressing his hand against the small of his back. “Come on,” he jerks his right shoulder, and as if on autopilot, Sherlock lifts his right hand through the haze settling around him to rest it gently against the curve of John’s back. 

He looks at their clasped hands as John squeezes again, then back at his face as John starts to sway back and forth, not quite in time with the music. John’s eyes are soft and so incredibly fond as he looks up at him, smiling his most patient smile, as if Sherlock is an idiot but he couldn’t possibly care. 

“J-John,” he tries, but his voice catches in his throat. John’s smile grows wider and Sherlock’s eyes start to betray him once again, burning at the corners.

“It’s not a waltz, I know,” he says, voice low, “but I was shite at that anyway.”

Sherlock manages a nod. “Yeth--yes. You were.” His voice sounds ragged and hoarse. John laughs, eyes practically glowing, and turns them.

“Right?” His fingers press into the skin of his back, warm through his dressing gown and t-shirt. “So this will have to do, yeah?”

Sherlock nods again, then his knees almost give completely out when John leans in close and presses a kiss to the line of his jaw. He turns his face into Sherlock’s neck, soft hair tickling just under Sherlock’s ear, nose pressed against his throat. He inhales deeply and rubs his hand up Sherlock’s spine once before settling back in the dip and squeezing him close.

Sherlock can’t stop the gush of air the rushes out of his lungs, or the rather pathetic sound the accompanies it. His right arm tightens around John’s instinctively, his entire body curling down into John’s embrace, drawn to his warm, solid form. John continues to sway as the song changes into something just as banal and mediocre as the one before, but Sherlock couldn’t possibly care now about how they’re dancing or what they’re dancing too, because John pulls him in tighter.

“Alright?” He whispers, breath warm against the bottom of his jaw.

Sherlock nods, turning his face into the side of John’s head. His hair is soft and lovely and smells like some generic shampoo that you could probably buy at a petrol station.

“You’re shaking,” John’s lips press against his jawline again.

Sherlock nods again, unable to trust his voice, or really trust anything, because they’re standing in the middle of the sitting room at Baker Street, tangled close with the curtains open, and swaying to music Sherlock has never heard before.

“It’s alright, Sherlock. I promise,” John untangles their hands and wraps his left arm around Sherlock’s shoulder, pulling him closer. Sherlock’s arm immediately wraps around John’s waist in turn, fingers clutching into the soft wool of his jumper.

“Why?” He whispers into John’s neck, voice trembling. 

“Because we should have done this ages ago,” John stops swaying and squeezes and then pulls back, imploring Sherlock to raise his head. “Because I missed you.”

And before Sherlock can answer, before his brain can even begin to think of a response, John leans up and gently, very gently, presses his lips against Sherlock’s.

It’s like a spark, a flash of lightning, a supernova when John’s lips touch his. The sensation fizzles through the inside of his skull and down his spinal cord, down to his toes and back up to entirely surround him, settling in his stomach like a punch that feels very not like any of the punches he’s ever received.

That brief, soft touch is _everything_. 

John leans back, eyelashes fluttering as his eyes open to gaze at him with a look that makes Sherlock feel as if his chest might crack open. His small, strong, _perfect_ hands are rubbing up and down Sherlock’s back. “Sherlock. I missed you. I missed you so much.”

Sherlock’s lips burn where John’s were. His eyes burn. He can feel his fingers shaking hatefully where they’re clinging to the back of John’s jumper. His right hand is throbbing with the beat of his heart, which is threatening to burst out of his chest. And John is still looking up at him with untroubled, patient eyes, as if he entirely expected Sherlock’s brain to short-circuit and is content to wait it out.

“I’m awful,” his voice doesn’t sound like his own in his ears.

“You said that once, yeah,” John smiles. John’s smile is beautiful, and makes Sherlock feel warm all over. It always has, since that very first day in St. Bart’s. It still did that day Sherlock got on the plane, and Sherlock had swallowed a fistful of pills hoping he’d leave the world in that warmth. 

“Because I am.”

“You are,” John’s smile grows wider. His deep blue eyes twinkle. “You are rude, and insufferable, and an overgrown toddler sometimes...but you’re also brilliant, and extraordinary, and beautiful,” he raises a hand to Sherlock’s cheek. His steady, strong hands touch Sherlock’s face with the lightness of a feather. “And you care, so deeply, for so much and it scares me. _Scared_ me, because I was so afraid all the time you’d be hurt. And I wouldn’t be there to keep you safe. And then…” John’s voice breaks just a little, and his smiles falters, just a little. 

Sherlock wants to say something, to maybe apologize, again, for everything, but John takes a deep breath and shakes his head slightly, and continues before he can. His smile grows again. “But I’m here now, and I swear on everything I’m never leaving. I’m not whole without you, Sherlock.” His thumb strokes gently against Sherlock’s cheekbone.

“I’m--I’m not…” Sherlock’s left fingers clench in John’s jumper. They’re still shaking. His entire body is shaking. “I’m not either…” He blinks furiously, feels the wetness gathering at the corners of his eyes. He’s terrified and elated and rather feels like he could throw up right here. He’d rather not, even if John wouldn’t care. Of course he wouldn’t care. But while Sherlock is not well-versed in some finer social intricacies, he knows vomiting on John’s bare feet would effectively ruin the moment. He inhales shakily, the air whistling down his throat--it feels tight, and swollen--into his lungs. His chest expands against John’s. “I don’t--I don’t know what…” Sherlock swallows loudly and squeezes his eyes shut. “You can’t leave. I need you here. With me.”

“I know,” John says, his voice soft and completely unruffled by Sherlock’s words. He presses his mouth to Sherlock’s again, very softly, but by the time Sherlock’s brain catches up enough to respond, his mouth is gone again. He feels John’s hand move from his cheek to the back of his head, stroking through his over-long curls a few times before tugging his head down to his shoulder. “I know.”

Sherlock goes willingly, pressing his face against John’s neck. He’s afraid that if he opens his eyes the tears will run freely, so he doesn’t. His arms tighten around John’s sides, his fingers clench even harder into John’s jumper, and he wants to press him entirely into his body. Or crawl inside John’s body. It wouldn’t matter, honestly. He wants them to be one, to fuse together so that nothing can ever tear them apart again.

John doesn’t seem to mind being squeezed, because he allows Sherlock to pull him closer, his fingers alternately stroking through his hair and massaging his scalp. His other hand is firmly stroking up and down Sherlock’s back, fingers catching on his ribs and vertebrae, rocking him gently.

“Sherlock,” John’s throat sounds as constricted as Sherlock’s feels. Sherlock feels his nose bump into his ear. “I’ll…” he clears his throat, his breath warm against Sherlock’s neck. He shivers. “I’ll take whatever you can give me. But I need to be here with you; I _want_ to be here with you.” Sherlock hold his breath for a moment. “And it’s fine, it’s all fine. Even if this is it, it’s fine…”

 _No._ “No,” Sherlock exhales and abruptly pulls back. His eyes finally open to find John’s, wide and warm in the soft light of the sitting room. The music has long since stopped. “I want everything.” His fingers press into John’s back, so strong and solid under his lumpy, assuming jumper. “John. I want _everything_. With you.”

John blinks, his expression shifting to one of awe. For the second time in his life, Sherlock prays, to something he isn’t sure is there; this time he prays that John will see him, finally. He blinks several more times, the seconds passing before he takes Sherlock’s face in both his hands.

“Me too, Sherlock,” he cups his cheeks. “God, me too.” John surges up, enough to make Sherlock stumble back a few steps as he presses his mouth hard against his.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the brace Sherlock got: http://miotech.net/users/physicians/bracing-and-supports/exos-radial-gutter-fracture-brace/
> 
> I've worn one, and while not perfect, they are a million bajillion times better because you can wear them in the shower.
> 
>  
> 
> Also, get ready for that E rating in the next chapter *wiggly eyebrows* heh heh heh


	7. Everything and the edge of the universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I know,” John purses his lips to press a kiss to Sherlock’s finger. “Must be a shock, even for you, all my ‘not gays’...”
> 
> “No,” Sherlock snorts. John can tell he’s trying to be sharp, but his voice wobbles a bit. “That was obvious, I always knew, I just…” he takes a deep breath and his finger drops from John’s lip. “I always knew you liked men, too. I just assumed it was me, specifically, that you didn’t--”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John POV
> 
>  Get ready for porn.
> 
> Corrections provided by [thejohnwatson](http://thejohnhwatson.tumblr.com//). Thank you as always during this monster of a chapter!
> 
>  
> 
> Also, SHAMELESS PROMOTION: follow me on tumblr if you are so inclined. [whimsicalethnographies](http://whimsicalethnographies.tumblr.com/)

  
  


Sherlock sways and stumbles a bit as John practically jumps into his arms, pressing his lips against Sherlock’s  _ hard. _  John’s left hand leaves his cheek to come around his back again, catching him, pulling him close and down.

_ I want everything _ .  God, those words.  John had never expected to hear those words from Sherlock’s mouth, to feel him shake against him, to taste those soft, full lips when he opens his mouth and swipes his tongue against them.  Sherlock makes a strange sound in the back of his throat and presses forward, but the angle is wrong and their noses mash together, so John pulls back just enough to gently tilt Sherlock’s face before diving back in.

John mouths at Sherlock’s lower lip, then flicks his tongue out again, pressing just slightly at the seam of his mouth.  Whether he gets the hint or it’s simply instinct, Sherlock’s mouth opens just slightly, and John takes the opportunity to gently sweep his tongue inside.  Sherlock jerks a little but doesn’t pull away, so John pushes further, gently circling the very tip of his tongue.  His mouth is warm, and wet, and he tastes like scotch, and a bit of cigarette (the sneaky little shit), and  _ home _ .  

Instantly, John knows Sherlock is the only person he’ll ever want to kiss, that he’s the only person John should have ever been kissing.

Sherlock makes that strange noise in his throat again and shudders, hard, sagging against his chest.  John pulls back, nipping Sherlock’s bottom lip, just enough to speak.

“Alright?”  He breathes, his lips brushing Sherlock’s as he speaks.  Sherlock’s face is so close he can just barely make out the deep pink flush on his cheeks, the way his full lips are moist from John’s mouth.

Sherlock nods slightly, his eyes still closed.  

“Good,” John leans up again, and this time Sherlock’s mouth is open and waiting for his tongue.  Sherlock is very clearly completely out of his league, and has very clearly never kissed someone like this before, but he doesn’t hesitate and does his best to mimic what John is doing, his breath ghosting gently against and into John’s mouth.  Despite being out of his depth he’s quite earnest, and John’s body flushes with adoration and protective tenderness.  And fierce arousal.  His cock is half hard already, pressing against the front of his jeans.

Gentle nips and soft swipes of tongue steadily devolve into something ravenous, licking and biting and sucking.  Sherlock is making small sounds, gasps and grunts, his right hand in its heavy plastic brace rubbing as best it can over John’s shoulders, the fingers of his left still clenched in his jumper.  The muscles of Sherlock’s back flex under John’s hands; he squeezes tighter, harder, walking Sherlock back to the table against the wall.  A pile of books clatters to the floor as Sherlock’s rear bumps onto the table; John inches him back, pressing directly between his long legs.  He can feel the heaviness of Sherlock’s erection through the thin pyjama  pants.  John growls in his throat and tangles a hand in Sherlock’s curls, pressing his face and mouth harder against his, but is met by a jerk and a sharp gasp of pain.

John quickly pulls off as Sherlock inhales hard through his teeth.  He moves to release him but Sherlock stops him, holding him tightly with his uninjured left hand.  Their noses brush.

“No,” he exhales, his eyes opening. They’re glassy and slightly unfocused, his lips rose-pink and starting to swell slightly.  John sees a slight bit of burn on his chin from his stubble; he hasn’t shaved in three days.  Clumsily, Sherlock disentangles his right hand from under John’s arm and lifts it slightly.  “It caught.”

John laughs, low and soft.  He gently takes Sherlock’s splinted hand and raises it to his mouth, kissing the tips of his index and middle fingers where they stick above the hard, black plastic.  Sherlock’s eyelashes flutter adorably.  “I’m sorry, love,” he kisses the knuckles of his ring and pinkie fingers, free of the bindings.  Sherlock’s breath hitches at the endearment.

“‘S’not you…”  He’s still breathless, his mouth a centimeter away from John’s.

“Your ribs?” John rubs down Sherlock’s back and side, palpating slightly.

“Fine,” Sherlock winces slightly, but lowers his face, catching John’s mouth.  The kiss is wet and open.  “It’s fine.”

“Sherlock…”

“Please, John,” Sherlock is trembling gently.  He blinks furiously.  “I’m fine.  Just...please…”

“Alright,” John brushes his mouth against Sherlock’s.  “Yeah,” another soft kiss, once, twice.  Sherlock’s mouth tries to follow John’s each time he pulls away.  “Good,” John places his hand on the small of Sherlock’s back, pulling him flush against his body.  The ridge of Sherlock’s erection presses directly against his belly.  It is incredibly arousing, and John’s cock fills out completely in his pants.  He kisses Sherlock again, bites at his mouth.  His fingers twitch in John’s hand.  “You’re just...I mean, still...I just don’t want to hurt you…”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sherlock’s breath is hot against John’s face.  “You won’t. John.”

“I might,” John opens his eyes and looks at Sherlock in earnest.  He’s so beautiful right now, hair tousled, face flushed with stubble burn, a bit of saliva on his swollen lips.  He’s looking at John as if he’s never seen him before, awe and wonder and something just slightly too innocent to call lust.  He’s more beautiful than John has ever seen him, and John feels like he’s floating in a haze, lost in a dream he’d never thought he’d attain:  Sherlock, quivering and shaking in his arms, breathing like they’ve just sprinted after a cab through the streets of London, hard against his belly.  “I’ve wanted this for so long, Sherlock.  I’ll fucking eat you alive.”

“I have, too.  So long, John.  And I’ll let you.”

“Jesus Christ, Sherlock,” John growls, perhaps a bit too harshly, because Sherlock’s eyes widen in shock almost imperceptibly.  Tentatively, he brings his uninjured hand up to John’s cheek, stroking over the stubble and acne scars there, then up to his eyebrows.  It’s a little strange, but then it’s Sherlock.  He closes his eyes as the fingertip brushes over his eyelashes, so gently, and strokes down his nose.  “What are you doing?” John whispers hoarsely, the strange, soft touching making the desire in his gut flare more than it should.

“Memorizing,” Sherlock says, very matter-of-fact, as if there wouldn’t be any other reason. His voice is lower than it has any right to be.  He strokes over John’s upper lip, then across the shallow dimple in his chin.  His presses the tip of his finger to the middle of John’s bottom lip.  “I don’t ever want to forget you, like this…not when I--when I thought...”

“I know,” John purses his lips to press a kiss to Sherlock’s finger.  “Must be a shock, even for you, all my ‘not gays’...”

“No,” Sherlock snorts.  John can tell he’s trying to be sharp, but his voice wobbles a bit.  “That was obvious, I always knew, I just…” he takes a deep breath and his finger drops from John’s lip.  “I always knew you liked men, too.  I just assumed it was me, specifically, that you didn’t--”

“Fucking Christ, Sherlock,” John interrupts him, opening his eyes.  He brings his hand up to Sherlock’s cheek, just barely prickly in the way a fresh shave from an electric razor feels.  “Look at me.”  

Sherlock lifts his eyes.  They’re incredibly dark in the low light, still slightly glazed.  His lips part slightly.

“I want this,” John says bluntly.  He presses on the small of Sherlock’s back, pushing him even more flush with his body.  “I want you.  I have always wanted you, since that first day.  But I was afraid because I thought you would never want me.  But then, everything,  ]  and I--I want you. I want to take you to bed.  I want to take you to bed every night for the rest of our lives.  I want to sleep next to you every night.  I want to kiss you good morning, and I want to kiss you good-bye when I leave the flat.”  Sherlock’s eyes widen.  His bottom lip starts to tremble.  “I want to hold your hand when we go out, I want to hug you after a chase.  I want to go on adventures with you, and retire a grumpy old man with you.  I want it to be just us, the two of us, against the rest of the world.”  John brushes his thumb over Sherlock’s cheekbone as his forehead drops and clunks against his.  “I want to yell at you and scream at you about heads in the fridge and then stroke your hair when you’re upset.  I want you to come to me if you need to.  I want to do it every day, and then I want to die in bed next to you when I’m a hundred years old.  And I want you to want these things, Sherlock.”

“I do,” Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut.  His hand drops down to clench at John’s jumper again.  “That.  I want those...I want that.”

John takes a shaky breath; his vision blurs and he has to blink back tears.  “Good.  That’s good, Sherlock.”  He leans forward and kisses Sherlock, firm but still chaste.  He pulls off, just slightly.  “But right now,” John’s lips tingle as they brush Sherlock’s while he speaks, his eyes closed.  “Right now, I really, really want to fuck you.”

Sherlock’s inhales.  He swallows audibly.  “Alright.”

“I mean it.  I want to hold you down and hear you scream and just...I want to make you feel it for days.  Hell.  Fucking hell, Sherlock,” John opens his eyes.  Sherlock’s cheeks are bright red, hot under his palm.  It’s unbearably arousing.  “I wasn’t exaggerating.  I’m going to fucking eat. You. Alive.”

Sherlock exhales shakily, then pulls John forward and presses their lips together.  Their teeth clack but John quickly maneuvers his face, slanting his open mouth over Sherlock’s and effectively sucking his tongue into his mouth.

“I didn’t know,” Sherlock breathes into John’s mouth.  “John.  I didn’t know…”

“I know,” John suckles briefly on Sherlock’s top lip, then bites his bottom lip gently.  He pulls Sherlock’s forehead down to his; their lips brush, swollen and wet with saliva while he speaks.  “We’re both idiots.”

Sherlock giggles--actually giggles--and it’s a warm, slightly shaky, impossibly sweet sound that makes fierce protectiveness well in John’s chest.  His glassy eyes flit up to John’s quickly while he pulls at the collar of John’s jumper with one finger.  “We’ll still be best friends?”

John’s heart almost cracks in two; tears well in the corner of his eyes again.  “Always,” he kisses Sherlock’s chin, then up the side of his jaw to his ear.  The skin of his neck is just as soft as John always imagined it.  He gently bites Sherlock’s earlobe, eliciting a shiver.  “I think being in love with my best friend is pretty amazing, and I’m not giving up either part.”

Sherlock lets out a sound that can really only be described as a sob--Sherlock Holmes sobs--and wretches  John’s face back to his.  Their lips meet with hungrily, almost painfully, all teeth and tongues.  John has never kissed with such passion, been kissed with such passion, and even if Sherlock is lacking the finesse of experience, his enthusiasm more than makes up for it.  John’s cock throbs painfully in his jeans, at full attention, so John grabs Sherlock’s hips and shifts, sliding him forward on the edge of the table and pressing between his legs.  Their crotches align and Sherlock shudders violently.

“You like that?” John breathes into Sherlock’s mouth.

“Yes.”

“Good,” John sucks on the tip of Sherlock’s tongue.  His hand dips down to knead Sherlock’s arse.  “Let’s go.” He kisses Sherlock’s nose, then backs up and unwinds Sherlock’s hands from his waist, gripping his left tightly and gently, very gently, cradling his right.

Sherlock looks dazed and absolutely lovely.  The swelling around his cheek is gone, the bruises faded into nothing, but he’s blushing furiously, his impossibly sharp cheekbones flushed a bright pink.  His lips are swollen and wet and red, eyes glassy, hair an absolute riot, and John has never seen anything so gorgeous in his entire life.  He pulls Sherlock gently off the table; he stumbles a bit when he stands up.

John leans in to steady him.  “Careful, love.”  He lets go of Sherlock’s right hand and presses a hand against his back.  “No blood left in your head?”

Sherlock’s cheeks flush impossibly deeper, and John has to kiss him once more.  He’s never seen him like this and it’s absolutely, maddeningly delicious.  He sweeps his tongue quickly through Sherlock’s mouth.  “Come on.”

The walk to the bedroom is almost impossibly long, John having trouble walking with an almost painful erection and Sherlock stumbling dazed behind him.

The lamp in the corner of the bedroom casts a warm glow across the bed, which they both immediately stumble and fall onto in a tangle when they reach the room.  Sherlock is quite impatient; John has to stop him from fumbling at the edge of his jumper.

“Hey, love,” he kisses him, sucking gently on his lower lip.  “Slow…”  He takes Sherlock’s hands in his and kisses his knuckles (and one plastic brace).

“John…”  Sherlock is absolutely lovely, mussed and panting.  John rolls him on his back and climbs over him, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“I need you to be honest with me…” John kisses down Sherlock’s nose.  He’s pretty sure that Sherlock’s history is next to nothing, if actually nothing, but he doesn’t want to assume  _ anything _ .  Not right now.  They’ve both assumed too much, and in doing so nearly killed each other.  

“Alright,” Sherlock’s eyes drift close.

“I mean it.  Promise.”

“Promise,” Sherlock raises his head so his lips brush against John’s.

“Alright,” John kisses him and tightens his arms around his back.  “So, yeah. Um.” John fumbles his words, knowing how very important this question is but painfully embarrassed to ask his flatmate-slash-best friend-slash-love of his life-slash- _ hopefully  _ lover how intimate he’d been with people in the past.  Or frankly, if there were any at all.  “Have you--I mean, when...were--”

“No,” Sherlock opens his eyes and looks directly into John’s.  He isn’t the least bit  surprised; he’s long grown used to Sherlock essentially reading his mind, even if he missed one very important thing consistently over the years.  “I’ve never been...intimate, emotionally or physically, with anyone before.”  Sherlock speaks very matter-of-factly, as if he’s telling John the weather report.  “I’ve been attracted to men before, but people are boring and frankly it was never worth the trouble.”

“Ok,” John nods, careful to keep his face and voice neutral.  He rubs his hand up Sherlock’s spine.  “And I’m worth the trouble?”

“Infinitely,” Sherlock answers quickly, as if John had just asked him the most banally obvious question in the world.  “You’re the only person worth the trouble, John.  For many things.  Most things.”

John’s giggle is ridiculous even to his own ears; he’s pretty sure his smile is ridiculous, too.  He leans his forehead against Sherlock’s.  “You’re absolutely extraordinary.”

Sherlock’s face does that wonderful transition from slightly haughty to bemused, to pleased, pleased that John approves of his words, and him, his eyelashes fluttering and lips quirking up at the corner.  “You wanted me to tell the truth.”

“I did,” John kisses him, deep and wet.  He pulls off and brings his hand around to Sherlock’s face.  “And you want to do this.”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“For God’s sake, John,” Sherlock rolls his eyes and throws his left thigh over John’s hip.  “Yes, I’m sure.”

“I have to check, you tit,” John pinches Sherlock’s earlobe, but kisses his swollen lips again.  “Do you have, um…”

“Bedside drawer,” Sherlock waves his hand back towards the table, forgetting--again--that his right hand is still fairly tender and incapacitated.  He grimaces.  “I hate this.”

“Just be mindful to keep it out of the way,” John carefully crawls over Sherlock, reaching over to the drawer handle.  Sherlock continues to hold onto John’s jumper with his left hand.  Inside the drawer is a pen, three batteries, a broken pocket watch, and a tube of medical-grade lubricant that looks suspiciously like something John would give an old man with advanced prostatitis who needs to perform intermittent catheterization.  “No condoms.”

“We’re both clean,” Sherlock grunts, tugging on John’s jumper.  “And even if you weren’t, I wouldn’t--”

“Sherlock,” John grabs the tube of lube and flops back on the bed.  “That is a terribly reckless and irresponsible attitude.”

“We’ve both been tested since our last potential exposures, me repeatedly because Mycroft is an insufferable meddler.  Besides, do you have any?”

John sighs.  “No.  I wasn’t exactly expecting to need them.”

“Then checkmate, John,” Sherlock wraps his arm around John’s neck and pulls him down.  “I don’t want them, anyway.”

“As your physician, I’m officially telling you that your attitude is unacceptable.”

“But as John,” Sherlock leans in and runs the tip of his tongue along the edge of John’s jaw.  “You are going to fuck me anyway.”

“You’re a menace,” John tosses the tube of lubricant to the bed and raises his head so Sherlock can nip along his neck.  His warm mouth and tongue feel incredible.  

“Yes, and I would like you to do what you said you would.”

“Which thing?” John rolls Sherlock onto his back and climbs over him again.

“All of them.”

“Okay,” John settles his knees on either side of Sherlock and tangles both his hands in his messy curls.  “But you still have to be honest...you say stop, and we stop.”

“I won’t want to stop.”

“You might.”

“No-pe.”  Sherlock accentuates the “p,” perhaps a bit louder than it usually would be with his swollen lips.

“Sherlock…”

“Fine, John,” Sherlock rolls his eyes.  “If I find your attentions too overwhelming or anal penetration too uncomfortable, I will inform you.”

John smiles and leans down to kiss him.  “There, was that hard?”  He pushes his hands under Sherlock’s worn t-shirt.

“I--mmph!”

John is fairly sure Sherlock was going to say something sharp, but he cuts him off with a deep kiss before he can, his hands inching under his t-shirt.  The skin of his chest is soft and warm, the soft hairs scattered on his sternum and between his nipples delightful against his fingers.  It’s a reminder that Sherlock is a real man, warm and alive and currently hard as a rock in his pyjama  pants.

“Let’s get you out of these, yeah?” He removes his hands from Sherlock’s chest and reaches for the cuff of his dressing gown, pushing it off his shoulders and down his arms, maneuvering it carefully over the cast on his right hand.  Sherlock goes as limp as a ragdoll, allowing John to quickly manhandle him out of his clothes; John carefully removes his t-shirt, then hooks his fingers in the waistband of Sherlock’s pyjamas and under the elastic of his pants, pulling them both off in one swift motion.

John doesn’t look, though.  Not yet.  He hops off the bed, leaving Sherlock sprawled and nude, and quickly starts divesting his clothes.  Jumper and vest hit the floor with his jeans and pants, and John takes a moment to be grateful that he doesn’t have socks on to awkwardly struggle with.  The cooler air of the room feels heavenly on his cock after having been trapped in his pants for so long.  John’s as hard as he’s ever been in his life, painfully erect for a forty-four year old.

When he’s done, John takes a deep breath and turns to look at Sherlock.  It’s like a punch to the gut.

John’s seen Sherlock nude before, even before the past few weeks when helping him bathe was a necessity.  Sherlock’s disdain for social niceties extended to modesty; more than once John had walked into the flat to find him sprawled over some surface in nothing but a sheet, or pants, and one time the bath mat, having run out of the loo after a shower to check a time-sensitive experiment.  But John has never, ever seen Sherlock looking like this.

He looks like an angel, fallen and debauched, dark curls spread out on the mattress, his creamy white skin flushed pink across his chest and down his thighs.  The dark bruises from a few weeks ago have all but faded completely, leaving only a few spots of shadow around his ribs.  His penis is so erect it’s flush with his belly, long and slender like Sherlock himself, a delectable dusky pink the same color as his cheeks.  The glans is poking through his foreskin and shiny wet, seeping already, smearing fluid on his flat belly.  John has never seen anything so beautiful in his entire life.

And, if John is reading his expression right, Sherlock is experiencing the same emotions upon seeing John nude for the first time.  His eyes are wide as the flick over John’s body, taking in every inch of him, from the bullet wound on his shoulder to the not-quite-healed nick on his thigh.  John wouldn’t describe himself as beautiful, certainly not the way Sherlock is beautiful, but he’s relatively fit, maybe a bit softer now that he’s on the other side of forty.  From the look of awe on Sherlock’s face, however, he wonders if maybe Sherlock would argue the point of beauty with him.

“John,” Sherlock whispers, licking his lips as his eyes settle on John’s cock, heavy and dark between his legs.

“Sherlock,” John smiles, crawling onto the bed and settling partially over Sherlock.  “You’re so beautiful.”

“John,” Sherlock raises his lips for John to kiss, apparently at a loss for words that aren’t John’s name.

“What?” John smirks, settling close and wrapping his arm around Sherlock’s shoulder, stroking through his curls.

Sherlock blinks several times and opens his mouth to speak, but still only finds one word, “John.”

John chuckles and lowers his head.  He kisses Sherlock hard, and runs his hand down Sherlock’s side, feeling the lithe muscles twitch under his fingers, the bumps of his rib, the sharp flare of his hipbone.

“I want to touch you everywhere, kiss you everywhere,” John whispers.  “Can I do that?”

Sherlock nods frantically, nose bumping into John’s.  So John starts there, pressing a kiss to the very tip of his nose, then his chin, and down to the long line of his neck.  The skin there is soft and warm, and positively delicious: salty with sweat and something John can’t really name but is absolutely intoxicating.  Sherlock’s pulse is throbbing beneath his skin; John bites at it, swirling his tongue and sucking, with the distinct aim of leaving a bright purple bruise on that creamy white skin.

Above him, Sherlock moans and grunts, hips twitching up.  His cock brushes against John’s side, hot and damp.

“Eager, are we?” John murmurs, biting at the tiny throb beneath his skin one more time, before moving down to lick at the notch of his sternum.

“You’re infuriating,” Sherlock rumbles.  His left hand comes to rest on John’s back, fingers dancing over his shoulder blades and around the crater-like exit wound scar.

“Mmmm, I am…” John licks lower, the sparse hair sprinkled on Sherlock’s chest tickling his lips.  He sucks over to one pink nipple, already a swollen pink bud, and flicks his tongue, circling the bud of flesh.  “And you’re impatient .”  He pulls back and blows softly over the saliva he left on Sherlock’s skin; he shivers violently.

“John…”

John kisses lower, over his sternum, but when his lips reach the small divot below the bone, he pauses.  He’s seen the scar before, healed-well but still shiny purple, just below and to the right of his heart.  A few centimeters to the left, or really the same but in anyone less obstinate, and his Sherlock would have been gone forever.  John takes a shuddering breath and presses his forehead into it, the desire in his gut flagging to make way for unresolved fear and grief.  

“John…” Sherlock’s hand comes up to rest on the back of his head.  He shifts up a bit to lean on his elbow.  “It’s alright.”

“I know,” John whispers into his skin.  He takes another deep breath, trying to quell his rising panic.  “But it shouldn’t--I shouldn’t have…”

“You didn’t,” Sherlock states matter-of-factly.  “And it behooves no one to rehash it.” His fingers stroke through John’s hair.  “You told me it was over.  And you were right. It is.”

John remembers their conversation, when Sherlock awoke shaking and screaming, and he held him, and told him they didn’t have to worry anymore.  It wasn’t the entire truth; they will always have to worry, about enemies and injuries and whether every time they leave the flat that  only one will come back.  But they’re stronger together, and they’re now more  _ together _ than they’ve ever been.

“Alright?” Sherlock whispers, pressing the tips of his fingers lightly against John’s skull.

“Yeah,” John exhales hard, reaching back to remove Sherlock’s hand from his hair and twining their fingers together.  He pulls Sherlock’s hand to his mouth and looks up; Sherlock is watching him intently, the lust cleared from his eyes.  That certainly won’t do.  John flicks his tongue out to sweep over the small mark.

“Good,” Sherlock arches an eyebrow and smirks. “Because I believe you just promised that you would sodomize me.”

“That I did,” John growls, pushing down all his less-than-savory emotions, and allowing the tide of lust to bubble back over him.  He presses an open mouth kiss to Sherlock’s scar, swirling his tongue briefly, wriggles down the bed.  Before Sherlock can react, John wraps his hand around the base of Sherlock’s penis and sucks the very tip into his mouth.

“Oh!” Sherlock roars, flopping back to the bed as John suckles on his glans.  The taste of Sherlock’s arousal--salty and slightly bitter and base--is enough to make him completely forget about the mini-breakdown he just had.  John reaches down to cradle his scrotum, fondling and rubbing the sensitive glands while his head bobs up and down on Sherlock’s erection.  

John doesn’t want to spend too much time here--he does, but not at the expense of this exquisite experience ending too soon--so he dips his head deep, opening his throat to allow Sherlock in all the way, just once.  He is able to successfully fight his gag reflex; Sherlock’s cock is a welcome, heavy weight on his tongue and in his throat, his nose brushing the dark hair at the base, but after a few moments his lifts his head and mouth off Sherlock’s penis.

“Good?” He murmurs, lips brushes the sticky head of Sherlock’s cock.

Sherlock nods frantically, spread out and shaking on the bed, left hand in his hair, the free fingers of his right hand wrapped in the sheets as best they can.  John tongues his slit once more then lets go of his cock.

“Turn over for me, love?”

Sherlock nods again but makes no real effort to move.  John kneels up and kisses his forehead, then takes his shoulders and gently guides him over to lay on his stomach.  Sherlock flops inelegantly, limbs splaying out over the rumpled sheets.  He’s panting slightly.

“Sherlock?”  John squeezes Sherlock’s sweaty neck.  “Alright?”

“Yeth--yes,” Sherlock nods.  He huffs into the mattress and squeezes his eyes shut.  “It’s...that was…”

“Good?” John shifts down on the bed a bit so he’s lying alongside Sherlock’s side.  He kisses Sherlock’s shoulder and runs his hands down his back.  His fingers catch and skip over the angry scars along Sherlock’s back.

“Yes. Overwhelming…but in a good way.”

“Good,” John pushes himself up on his elbow and leans over to kiss Sherlock’s other shoulder.  He opens his mouth around a deep purple scar, a cigarette burn Sherlock told him when he was caring for him in the month after he was shot, acquired in the two years he was away.

John hates these scars,  _ hates _ them, almost as much as he hates the small pockmark on Sherlock’s chest. They represent two of the worst years of his life; years when Sherlock was away, fighting for his life, fighting for John’s life, while John mourned the fact that his life was essentially over.  They’re the nights when he’d wake up with a start, wishing with everything he had that he’d hear Sherlock sawing away on his violin in anger.  They’re him looking at his gun, wondering if he picked it up, he could see Sherlock again.  They’re his anger when Sherlock returned, his anger and hurt that Sherlock was off on an adventure without him.

And they’re the pain of realizing he was wrong, that Sherlock didn’t leave because he wanted to, and that he hadn’t been there to protect Sherlock when he needed it.

John sucks on the skin around the cigarette burn, pulling it between his teeth, hoping it leaves a mark.  A mark that belongs to him over a mark of Sherlock’s pain.  He should do that to all of them.

Not right now though.  Now John wants to kiss and lick down Sherlock’s long back, still ethereally beautiful even marred as it is.  He does, running his tongue over knife slashes and lovingly pressing his lips to a nasty scar that’s his fault, ripped open stitches from when he tackled Sherlock to the ground.

Sherlock is still trembling beneath him, his spine flexing and extending as John’s mouth moves lower and lower.  He moans when John kisses one iliac crest, then the other, before settling his mouth over his sacrum, sucking at the smooth, slick skin.  The scent of Sherlock’s arousal is stronger here; musky and tinged with his poncey soap.

Sherlock wriggles against the bed, his hips hitching when the tip of John’s tongue dips into the cleft between his buttocks.

“Ok?” John slides his hand down Sherlock’s spine and over his hip, then presses an open-mouthed kiss to his left buttock.  The skin is soft and slightly damp with sweat.

“John…”

“Shhh…” John kisses his other buttock, pulling the soft skin between his teeth and sucking.  “Relax for me, sweetheart.”  His mouth inches closer to Sherlock’s cleft.

“What...what are you doing?” Sherlock’s voice is strangled and breathy.

“I said I wanted to kiss every part of you,” John dips his tongue in again, slightly lower this time.  Sherlock squirms.  “And I’m going to…”

“Oh!” Sherlock shudders as John dives in, licking one long stripe from his perineum up to the tip of his coccyx.  John pushes himself up on his elbows and grabs each buttock in each hand (how can a man so skinny, who eschews food so much, have such a plump, delectable arse?), spreading them, exposing Sherlock completely to his gaze.

“Fucking Christ,” John breath leaves him in a gush.  “Even your arsehole is fucking gorgeous.”  The tiny, pink ring of muscle twitches slightly under John’s gaze, just barely shiny with saliva from his single lick.  It’s the same color as his flushed cheeks, and his hard, flushed cock, bright against the creamy white of the rest of his skin and surrounded with the barest hint of soft, dark hair, much like the sparse hair that dusts his chest. John gently nudges Sherlock’s thighs apart and settles fully between them, the expensive sheets sliding maddeningly against his throbbing erection.

“Ah-oh!” Sherlock gasps and jerks as John lowers his mouth, swirling his tongue around the ring of muscle then sucking wantonly.  His soft skin tastes divine: clean sweat and soap and the heady, heavy taste of intense arousal.  And his body is so warm, so alive, trembling against John’s face.

John points his tongue and pushes, testing the tight ring, alternating deep licks, sucks, and jabs. Above him, Sherlock is gasping and grunting into the sheets, his entire body held tense.  John settles his open mouth around Sherlock’s hole and pushes with his tongue again, but is met with hard resistant.  He licks again then lifts his head, just enough so Sherlock can hear him.

“Sherlock…” he swirls his tongue once more.

“John,” Sherlock practically sobs into the mattress.

“Sweetheart,” another wet kiss against the tight, crinkled skin.  “I need you to relax for me.”

“I--” Sherlock’s back arches a bit, his hips pushing up and back at John’s face.  “It’s so--I’ve never--”

“I know,” John presses a soft kiss against Sherlock’s hole.  He wants to get his mouth earnestly on it again.  “But I need you to relax, okay?”

“Ok, I--oh God!” Sherlock cries out as John lowers his mouth, simultaneously reaching up and stroking down Sherlock’s perineum and balls, wet with saliva, before wrapping his hand around Sherlock’s hot, heavy cock.  His entire body jumps as John grabs him, his anus fluttering reflexively, and it gives just a bit now under John’s tongue.

John chuckles and sucks hard, pushes his tongue harder; Sherlock’s entire body shudders and rocks.  His sudden enthusiasm is the most arousing thing John has ever experienced, and his cock throbs where it’s pressed against sheets.  John lowers his head a bit to lap at Sherlock’s perineum, alternating the pressure, then sucks hard on the soft skin, imagining the bright purple bruise that will be there in the morning, in a place only he’s ever seen like this.  

“John…”  Sherlock’s back arches, pushing his arse up off the mattress.  John chuckles into Sherlock’s flesh and follows him up, his tongue swirling and spearing again against the tight pink pucker.  His thumb brushes over the glans of Sherlock’s penis; the hard flesh in his hand throbs and he can feel a pulse of fluid dribble out.  John peeks above the perfect white globes of Sherlock’s arse:  his face is pressed into the pillow, shoulders and spine shaking with the strain of getting closer and closer to the edge.

He considers it for a moment, with Sherlock’s velvety hot erection is in his hand, about finishing him off this way, so that he can feel the contractions of Sherlock’s pelvis against his face, feel the tight ring of muscle squeeze around the very tip of his tongue, but John knows that’s not what he wants.  He wants to push inside this warmth, to feel Sherlock’s legs around his waist, to watch his face move through surprise and discomfort into deep, indescribable pleasure.  He wants to feel Sherlock’s fingers digging into his shoulder, to kiss and lick the screams and moans out of his mouth.

So John reluctantly pulls off with a deep lick, and presses his lips to Sherlock’s left buttock.  His skin is burning hot and damp.

“Alright?” John murmurs, letting go of his cock and rubbing his hand over the pale globe of flesh, then down into the crease of his thigh.

“John,” Sherlock whimpers into the mattress, the muscles in his back flexing, his hips pushing back against John’s face.

“I know,” John presses one last open mouth kiss against Sherlock’s hole, watching for a moment as the pink ring of muscle twitches, shiny with his saliva.  He pushes himself up and presses a kiss to the flare of Sherlock’s hipbone.  “Turn over for me, sweetheart.”

John runs his hands up Sherlock’s side and abdomen, gently helping his quivering body roll.  His muscles twitch and jump under John’s fingers; when Sherlock is on his back, eyes closed and head thrown back against the mattress, his knees fall and splay wide around where John is now kneeling on the mattress.  There’s a wet spot on the linens where Sherlock’s cock was trapped under his belly.  John reaches out and strokes the crease of his groin, his thumb brushing through the black curls cradling his penis, surprisingly soft for a nearly forty-year-old man.  He’s so hard he’s flush with his belly, pink against creamy white, smearing pre-ejaculate just below his navel

“Oh, Sherlock,” John sighs, leaning over to gently the kiss the head of Sherlock’s penis, lapping the briny fluid from the slit, then off his belly, kissing higher and higher as he crawls over him--pausing to suck and swirl at that hateful scar below his sternum--until his mouth reaches where his pulse is fluttering in his neck.  “You’re so beautiful…”

“John,” Sherlock arches up against him, slick skin brushing against John’s painfully erect cock and making him shudder.  He kisses up Sherlock’s long, white neck to his chin and captures his mouth in an open, wet kiss, simultaneously languid and searing.  His arousal is burning bright in his chest, but unlike the explosion he expected, it’s simmering, like molten lava, spreading through his limbs and into his fingertips where they gently stroke Sherlock’s jaw.  John has had many lovers, women and men, some a five minute, anonymous fuck in the gents’ at a bar and others he  _ thought _ he even loved, but never, ever has he felt like this, suspended in time and close to boiling over all at once.

“Did you like that?” John whispers into Sherlock’s mouth, settling flush against him and running both hands through damp curls.  Their cocks aren’t quite aligned because of their height difference, but John can feel the ridge of Sherlock’s erection against his bollocks, the wetness of his pre-ejaculate smearing against his own throbbing penis.  It’s surreal.

“Yeth,” Sherlock lisps against John’s mouth, his curls bouncing against the pillow.  His cheeks are flushed the color of apples.  “I wasn’t...you didn’t--”

“Shhhhh,” John kisses one cheek, then the other, running his tongue along his zygomatic arch, up around his eye and over his eyebrow.  “I wanted to, you perfect, gorgeous thing.”  He kisses the crinkle that’s formed at the bridge of Sherlock’s nose.  “I said I was going to eat you alive, didn’t I?”  John pulls back so he can look into Sherlock’s eyes, leaning their foreheads together.  His eyes are glinting silver and seafoam green in the low light, a rainbow mix of awe and lust around inky, blown pupils.  His chest suddenly feels tight, breath catching in his throat.  John awkwardly shifts--the movement causing their cocks to jostle together and sending shivers up his spine while Sherlock huffs a shaky breath--to stroke across his cheek.  “I was so afraid I’d forget--”

“Me?”

“No, Sherlock.  I could never, ever forget you,” John kisses his nose.  “Your eyes.  They’re so beautiful.  So unique.  I was terrified I’d forget what they looked like, how they change.  But in the restaurant, they were exactly how I remembered them.”

“I was afraid, too,” Sherlock rasps, his breath warm and moist against John’s face.  “At the tarmac, I was afraid--I was afraid you’d forget--”

John cuts him off with a kiss, deep and a bit sad and tinged with every bit of emotion that’s filled his chest to bursting.  They’d never spoken of the plane and Sherlock’s miraculous return aside from that first night back.  John makes a promise to himself as his tongue sweeps against Sherlock’s that they will, that they’ll have thousands of nights to talk about the thousands of things they’ve never said to each other, both of them afraid of so many of the same things.  “Never,” he whispers hoarsely.  “You’re my life.  I would have spent every day thinking about you until I saw you again.”

Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut; his lip quivers.  “I love you,” he whispers, low and a bit stilted, awkward-sounding in his deep and usually imperious voice.  They’re the most beautiful words John has ever heard, supplanting the equally awkward, “not dead.”

“I know,” John chokes, dangerously close to real tears, which won’t do. Not right now.  “I love you, too.  So much.”  He lowers his face and catches Sherlock’s mouth again, sweet at first, but like all of the previous kisses, it quickly devolves into something animal and base.  John rocks his hips down, pressing his still impossibly hard cock against Sherlock’s belly, feeling the rumble of Sherlock’s moan in his chest.  He can also feel the fingers of Sherlock’s left hand dancing along his side and then between their bodies, but it’s still a shock when they awkwardly fumble around the head of his penis.  “Oh fuck,” John pulls out of the kiss a bit too quickly, shuddering as Sherlock’s finger tips slip around his foreskin in the slick fluid leaking out of his slit.

“I want to touch you,” Sherlock is staring up at him when John looks down, eyes wide and pink, swollen lips parted.  He looks as if he is in as much ecstasy touching John as John is in being touched; John rises up on his knees a bit, giving Sherlock the space he needs to completely wrap his hand around John’s cock.  Sherlock’s hands are large, unusually so, and while his stroking is uncoordinated and the pressure isn’t quite right, it feels incredible, as if those beautifully large hands were tailor made to wrap around him.

“Oh, fuck, Sherlock…” John gasps out, dropping his head to look between their bodies and watch as the head of his cock disappears into Sherlock’s fist while he strokes him.  It’s gloriously beautiful in its obscenity, watching Sherlock awkwardly smear pre-come and jerk him off with his left hand, his own cock still hard and leaking against his stomach.  He’s making the most gorgeous noises while he does it, sweet little moans and sighs that sound completely out of place coming from his mouth.  John has to kiss him, to lick and swallow those delicious sounds as Sherlock touches him the way he imagined for so long.  Finally.   _ Finally. _  His hips start to shift forward of their own accord, thrusting into the tight circle of Sherlock’s fist.

“Oh, oh, Sherlock, stop,” John pulls out of the kiss, suddenly far too close to the edge for his liking.  He reaches between their bodies and grabs Sherlock’s wrist, halting his ministrations.  Sherlock looks up at him in confusion, and maybe a touch of hurt, but before he can say anything John kisses him again, soft and sweet.  “Not like this,” he pulls Sherlock’s hand off his cock and twines their fingers together, Sherlock’s slightly sticky with his secretions.  “I said I wanted to fuck you.”

“Oh,” Sherlock’s expression softens, eyes growing hazy again with lust.  His right hand--and the heavy plastic brace--settles on John’s hip.

“You still want that?”  John squeezes his fingers.

Sherlock nods frantically.  “Yes.” His voice is suddenly clear, assertive.  His own.  “I want that.”  His eyes suddenly appear clear and focused, watching John’s face.  “I want it, John.”

“Good,” John kisses him.  “That’s so fucking good, Sherlock.”  He reaches up and brushes a curl off Sherlock’s forehead.  “And you’re going to be honest with me?  You don’t like it, and we stop, yes?”

“Yes, John.”

“Good,” John says again, but now it’s a growl as the arousal in his stomach flares, like a blast furnace being stoked.  He surges forward and kisses Sherlock again, his tongue forcing its way inside Sherlock’s mouth as he rolls to his side and fumbles with the pillow, pulling one from under Sherlock’s head.  “Up,” he bites at Sherlock’s mouth while awkwardly manhandling Sherlock’s torso and shoving the pillow under his hips, then pushing his bony knees apart.  Sherlock’s legs fall apart easily, one against the mattress and the other against John’s side where he kneels next to Sherlock.

John slides one hand down Sherlock’s body while he kisses him, gently stroking his erection and cupping his balls, pressing them up against his pelvis as Sherlock’s hips jerk and his breath huffs into John’s mouth.  His other hand is digging through the bunched sheets, looking for the nondescript tube of medical lubricant Sherlock pulled from his bedside drawer at John’s request.  John pushes his tongue further into Sherlock’s mouth when he finds the tube, his other hand slipping down further, circling the pucker of muscle, no longer slick with saliva, and pops the tip of his finger inside.

Sherlock jerks violently beneath him, and his mouth pulls away from John’s with a sharp gasp of surprise.

“Alright?” John wriggles the tip of his finger a bit, his callouses dragging against Sherlock’s dry flesh.

“Yes,” Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut.  “Yes.  Just, unexpected.  Even though I was expecting it.”

John chuckles and pushes a bit further--not too much--his finger seemingly drawn into the warmth of Sherlock’s body.  He’s so hot inside already, and John has barely breached him.  “It may feel strange at first,” he pecks Sherlock’s swollen lips.  “Remember, you have to be honest.”

“I will,” Sherlock opens his eyes and looks directly into John’s face.  He wriggles his hips, shifting the tip of John’s finger inside him.  “More.”

“Alright, love,” John removes his finger, immediately missing the feeling of Sherlock’s body snug around even that little bit of him.  He settles into Sherlock’s side and flips the cap of the lube, wishing just a bit they had something sexier than a tube that has the words “useful in aiding to insert bladder catheters” on the side.  Sherlock’s left hand settles on his thigh, his fingers warm and twitching while John squirts some lube on his fingers and coats Sherlock’s anus, then squirts some more and rubs his fingers together to coat them.  Sherlock watches his movements with intense interest, and awe, his expression not unlike when he finds a particularly telling clue at a crime scene.

It hits John again that this is Sherlock, his Sherlock, who he’s loved and admired so much since that very first day, watching with his laser-sharp focus as John gets ready to prepare him for anal penetration.  It would almost be funny, if it didn’t make John’s heart squeeze in his chest and his breath catch in his throat.

“Ready?” John reaches down and rubs his slick index finger around the tight pucker of muscle.  Sherlock nods, watching, then arches off the bed as John pushes, his entire finger sinking in up to the major knuckle.

“Oh,” Sherlock says, mouth open in a sweet little “o” when John’s finger is fully seated.  He’s watching his face for signs of pain, but doesn’t really see any; Sherlock is looking at him intently, as if he’s trying to figure out a particularly perplexing puzzle, but thoroughly enjoying every moment of the challenge.

“Yes?” John pulls out and pushes back in, Sherlock’s body impossibly tight but slick enough with lube that the movement is easy.  His hand tightens on John’s thigh as John fingers him gently, sliding in and out.  He feels incredible inside; hot and tight, and John’s cock twitches between his thighs as his sphincter flutters around his finger.  The idea of that snug heat around John’s erection makes him dizzy with arousal.

“Yes,” Sherlock sighs, eyes falling closed.  His hips wriggle a bit with the movement of John’s finger, cock bouncing against his belly.  “Add another.”

“Alright,” John whispers, leaning closer to the warmth of Sherlock’s body, keeping his eyes on Sherlock’s face as he pulls out then pushes both his middle and index fingers into Sherlock’s body.  This is a much tighter fit, and Sherlock’s head rolls back as he inhales sharply through his teeth, face scrunching in discomfort.  His fingers dig painfully into John’s thigh.

“I know it’s strange, pinches a bit,” John turns even closer into Sherlock’s body and reaches down to stroke Sherlock’s chest, over the scar beneath his heart.  

Sherlock jerks his head in a nod.  “Burns…” he exhales hard.  His eyes open and stare directly at the ceiling.  

“It’ll ease in a minute,” John reaches up and brushes his fingers through Sherlock’s curls.  His erection has flagged a bit, not fully flaccid but no longer dusky and throbbing against his belly as his body works through the sensation of being penetrated for the first time.  John holds his fingers still for a few moments as Sherlock’s anus twitches and fights against the intrusion.  When the flusters subside, John starts to curl his fingers, pushing upwards.  “Here, let me…”

Sherlock jumps as if he’s being electrocuted when John finds what he was looking for, the swollen nub in his ventral wall.  He gulps as John circles and rubs gently, fingers scrabbling against John’s thigh.

“John...John!  Oh God…”  Sherlock’s eyes squeeze shut again as John thrusts his fingers in earnest, making sure to rub across his prostate on every pass.

“Like that?” John crawls back between Sherlock’s thighs, his fingers never stopping, rocking in and out and up.  He squeezes Sherlock’s left hand and scissors his fingers.

“Yes…” Sherlock arches his neck on the pillow and pushes his hips down on  John’s hand.  A flush is spreading again across his chest, his cock fully hard again and leaking in earnest.  John lets go of his hand and reaches for his erection, thumbing the wet tip as he pushes a third finger in. “John…”

John’s cock seeps as he watches Sherlock writhe and moan on the bed in front of him, shoulders pressing into the mattress while his hips rock down against John’s hand, and then up into the circle of his fingers.  He’s absolutely gorgeous, a picture of debauchery, white skin mottled pink with shocks of black on his head and between his legs, where John’s hands are currently nestled, thrusting and rubbing.

“Nobody has ever seen you like this,” John murmurs, more to himself than to Sherlock, completely transfixed by the man in front of him, finally losing himself to his transport.

“John…”

“Just me,” John leans down and presses a kiss to the inside of Sherlock’s sweaty knee.  His fingers continue to thrust and scissor, but he’s no longer stroking up the length of Sherlock’s cock, merely holding on the base, thumb pressed into the crease just above his balls.  Sherlock’s entire body is covered in a sheen of sweat; John feels as if he’s coiled like a spring, every muscle drawn as tight as the strings on Sherlock’s violin, waiting to snap while his pulse throbs between his legs.

“Only you…” Sherlock repeats, lost in a haze of lust.  His left hand grabs onto John’s wrist, painfully.  “Please, John…”

“I know,” John stills his fingers and leans forward, pressing a kiss to Sherlock’s swollen lips.  “Do you still want me to fuck you?”  He lets go of Sherlock’s cock to cradle his jaw.

“Yes, please, please!”

“Alright, love…”  John sits back and gently pulls his fingers out of Sherlock’s arse, making an indelicate *squelching* sound.  John’s mouth waters when he looks down at Sherlock; his hole is slick with lube and a raw pink, twitching slightly.  He fumbles for the tube of lubricant and dumps some in his hand, perhaps too much, hissing through his teeth as he quickly slicks his relatively neglected cock.  He leans forward, pressing against Sherlock’s loosened hole.  “Stop me...stop me if you need to…”

“John, I--oh!”  Sherlock’s eyes pop open as the head of John’s cock pops inside him; he inhales hard, grabbing hard onto John’s forearm.

It’s incredible, and intoxicating, and makes it hard for John to breathe, the sensation of sliding slowly into Sherlock’s body, slick and tight and hot.  It feels like absolutely everything.  Sherlock is breathing shallowly beneath him, glassy eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, mouth open in shock.  His fingers are bruising John’s arm.  John keeps his eyes on his face as he moves as slowly as he can, inch by agonizing inch, until he bottoms out, hips coming into contact with Sherlock’s perineum while Sherlock suddenly arches off the bed, eyes squeezing shut while he breath gusts out in a rush.  

“Alright?” John’s voice is strangled, his arms shaking as he holds himself above Sherlock’s body, his entire body straining against the urge to pull back and pound into the tight heat enveloping him.

Sherlock nods frantically, mussed curls bouncing against the pillow.  He opens his eyes, blinking at the ceiling a few times, then looks directly into John’s face.  John can feel his left hand reaching between them, brushing against his heaving stomach then down to the scant space between their bodies to where they’re connected.  His fingertips rub through his public hair, against the very base of his cock and then around where he’s inside him, circling and feeling the edge of his slippery, stretched hole.  He lets out a sob.

“John.”

John looks between their bodies, sees Sherlock’s long, delicate fingers rubbing around his taught rim, raw and pink, up and over John’s pubic bone.  Despite his obvious discomfort, his cock is still rock hard, flat against his stomach.  It’s so incredibly erotic, painfully so, that John has to grab Sherlock’s hand and pull it away, lest he come then and there.

“Sherlock…”

“John…”

John places Sherlock’s hand on his hip, his fingers slippery with lube and sliding against his skin.  “You’re exquisite...oh my God…” John lifts his clean hand and gently brushes Sherlock’s fringe off his brow.  “You feel so fucking good…”

Sherlock blinks furiously and inhales deeply.  John can feel it around his cock, the twitching of his muscles and the pull in his abdomen, and the beat of his heart, throbbing and pulsing.  His fingers dig into John’s hip.  “It’s...John.” His voice is strangled and tight.  “It’s overwhelming…”

“Do you want me to pull out?” John asks gently, still struggling to hold himself completely still while Sherlock adjusts to the invasion.  

“No!” Sherlock exclaims quickly and earnestly.  His fingers clutch harder into John’s skin.  “No, don’t.  Don’t stop, John.”  He strains his head up a bit, reaching for John’s mouth so John obliges, leaning down--and oh God, that slight shift and slide causes sparks to go off behind his eyes--nibbling gently at Sherlock’s swollen lips.  His right arm wraps around John’s neck, the heavy brace settling over his shoulder.  After a few moments of gentle, sweet kisses and nips, John can feel Sherlock’s tension evaporate, and as the kisses begin to grow more hungry and desperate, his hips start to wriggle and rock up against John.  He’s still fully hard, the length of his cock rubbing against John’s belly.

“Do you want me to move?” John looks directly into Sherlock’s eyes, wide and dark with lust.

“Yes,” he breathes, arching up a bit and hooking his left leg around John’s thigh.

“Alright,” John tries to keep his eyes trained on Sherlock’s but when he pulls out, just a bit, the pleasure is so intense his head drops with a groan.  He forces his head up to watch Sherlock’s face as he pushes back in, tingles spreading from his pelvis down to his toes.  Sherlock’s mouth drops open into that gorgeous pink “o” and his eyes roll back in his head while John thrusts, much too slowly and shallowly, waiting for him to adjust completely.

“Good?” He exhales through gritted teeth, still desperately fighting the urge to pound, hard and fast, into Sherlock’s hot, tight body.

“Yes,” Sherlock’s back and neck arch.  His fingers knead into the flesh on John’s hip, then reach around to his arse.  “Please,” he grips John’s buttock, breathing hard.  “More.”

What’s left of John’s self-control completely fizzles with a spark in the very base of his skull, and pushes himself up, one hand digging into the mattress while his other grips Sherlock’s hair, hard.  His hips surge forward, pushing into that lush, gorgeous heat over and over as Sherlock arches again and twists, moaning loudly.  His other leg lifts off the bed, and John lets go of Sherlock’s hair to grab his thigh and wrap it around his waist while his hips snap forward, again and again.

John leans down and covers Sherlock’s open mouth with his, sweeping his tongue inside in time with his hips.  Sherlock is overwhelmed and unable to kiss back, but his pelvis is pushing back against John’s, and the low noises from the very back of his throat are the most beautiful sounds John has ever heard.

“Li-like that?” John swivels his hips as he thrusts, angling up, and Sherlock practically jumps in his arms.

“Yes!  Yes, like that!”

John captures his mouth again, furiously sucking in his tongue as he continues to pound.  He can feel Sherlock’s body start to tense, and for as much as he wants to drag this out, to make their first coupling last for hours, he’s grateful, because the slick friction around his cock is bringing him dangerously close to the edge very quickly.  Sherlock is so passionate, and warm, and so  _ alive _ , writhing and moaning and gasping against John’s face and into his mouth.  His hands are furiously running over John’s back and arse, squeezing everything he can with his left, knees squeezing into his sides.

“I’m close, Sherlock,” John growls against Sherlock’s lips, shifting to reach between their bodies.  Sherlock’s cock is painfully hot and hard, leaking copiously at the tip.  Sherlock jerks and shudders violently when John’s slick hand closes around it.  “I’m so fucking close...I need you to let go…”

“John,” Sherlock whines, arching and twisting his head on the pillow as John wrings his hand around his erection, hips pounding forward furiously.

“Look at me,” John breathes, pressing their foreheads together.  “Let go, Sherlock.  Come for me, love.”  The heat is building in John’s pelvis, tiny contractions starting in his pelvic base and scrotum.  “We’re going to do this every day...forever.  I promise.  But I need you to come for me now…”

“John,” Sherlock’s eyes widen as John’s thumb digs into the spongy, wet head of his cock, sliding down to press against his frenulum while his hand twists and tugs.  John feels it, the first ripples of Sherlock’s body around him, weak at first then stronger, rippling around him.

Sherlock arches and John feels his cock twitch in his hand, spurting over his hand and onto his belly, and the look on Sherlock’s face, pure ecstasy and surprise, drags John to the very edge.  Two more hard thrusts and the fire in John’s pelvis erupts; he’s coming, pouring into Sherlock’s convulsing body harder than he ever has before as he tips over, off the edge of the universe.  It seems to go on for hours and yet still isn’t nearly long enough; John wants to stay in this moment forever, ecstasy while feeling Sherlock surrender to his own ecstasy, knowing that this is it, this is where he is meant to be.

When John comes back to his senses his face is in Sherlock’s damp, sweating neck, and his back is being stroked by long delicate fingers and a heavy, plastic cast.  Sherlock is gasping beneath him, shivering, his legs still tight around John’s waist.  On every second or third breath John can feel aftershocks course through him, gentle clenches around his softening cock.  It’s bliss.

“Alright?” John rasps after a few moments, face still buried in Sherlock’s neck.  He releases Sherlock’s penis, wet hand pressing under his back.  

Sherlock nods and makes some vague noises that may be actual words, John isn’t sure.  He inhales deeply:  soap and sex and Sherlock’s perfect, beautiful scent.  

“I should get off of you,” John exhales hard.

“No.”

“Clean up...make sure you’re not bleeding…”

“No,” Sherlock’s limbs tighten around John’s body.

“Sherlock…”

“Please,” Sherlock’s breath ruffles John’s hair.  He strokes up his neck, fingers brushing through the short hairs at his nape.  “John.  Please.  Just a few more minutes.”

John squeezes Sherlock a bit tighter and relaxes, sinking against him.  “Alright.”  He could never deny him.

****

John wakes when he reaches out and his hands come up empty.  The dip in the mattress is still warm; he rolls into it, breathing that scent of Sherlock and sex, to which his cock gives an interested twitch.   _ I will have this for the rest of my life… _

They’d drifted off to sleep despite the relatively early hour after John had cleaned them both up, Sherlock a dead weight on the bed, and only the tiniest bit of blood ( _ “Obviously, John.  You’re abnormally large, especially considering your height.”)   _ Then they’d tangled together, in the center of the bed, no longer bothering with sides or the invisible barrier they’d established when John first took a leap and decided to sleep in Sherlock’s bed.

Under the heavenly scent of Sherlock in the pillow John also smells the faint acrid scent of cigarette smoke, so he reluctantly pulls himself out the deliciously warm bed and pulls on a pair of shorts.  The air in the flat is chilly, goose pimples rising on his arms as he enters the kitchen.  Sherlock is standing in front of the open window, illuminated by the cool blue lights of Baker Street at three in the morning.  He’s shirtless, his pyjama pants slung low on his sharp hips, and the cherry on his cigarette glows bright red when he takes a drag.

As always, he takes John’s breath away, but the poignancy of this, of seeing him like this after the leap they just took together, makes his arms ache to hold him, and smell him and feel the warmth of his body, the beat of his heart.  The line tugging directly on John’s heart is almost unbearable, and they’re only a room apart.

John quickly crosses the kitchen and sitting room, stepping up behind Sherlock.  He wraps his arm around Sherlock’s waist and tugs him so his back is flush with John’s bare chest; his skin is cool and goosepimply from the cold winter air.  

More importantly, he falls back easily, settling against John’s chest with a barely audible sigh, “John.”

“Hey,” John presses his lips against Sherlock’s back, directly over a cigarette burn scar from Serbia.  In the faint light he can see a ring of maroon around the mark; surely a remnant from when he’d sucked and bitten at the lines and divots on Sherlock’s back a few hours ago.  “Shouldn’t be smoking.”

Sherlock simply shrugs, bringing the cigarette back to his mouth and pulling deeply.

“Alright?” John wraps his other arm around Sherlock’s chest, settling his hand over his heart.  The sparse hairs across his chest tickle the tips of John’s fingers.

“Yes,” Sherlock lays his right hand over John’s, weakly gripping with his little finger.  “Just thinking.”

“Mmmm,” John rubs his nose between Sherlock’s cold shoulder blades.  “I think you’re healed enough to start thinking again.”

“Amongst other things,” he replies dryly, but John can feel his smirk.  He can also feel the wince when Sherlock shifts his weight to his other foot.

“Sore?” He lays his head against Sherlock’s shoulder and rubs his hand over Sherlock’s taught belly.  The hairs below his navel catch on his fingers, and John feels another twitch in his cock.  Sherlock apparently feels it too, because he pushes his rear back with a chuckle as he takes another drag.

“Yes,” he answers honestly.  “But I’m not complaining, mind you.”

John laughs into Sherlock’s skin--growing warmer now that he’s pressed against him--and rocks them slightly.  “We’ll give it a few days.”

“Absolutely not!” Sherlock exclaims a bit too seriously, and tries to turn around.  John laughs again and holds him in place.

“I meant until I shove my cock up your arse again, you…arse,” John chuckles and squeezes.  “There’s plenty more to fill the time, love. I promise.”

“Alright,” Sherlock relaxes again.

John rubs his hands gently over Sherlock’s chest and belly, the silence settling over them like a warm blanket.  It’s positively surreal, and wonderful to be standing like this:  together in front of an open window (while Sherlock unfortunately smokes), the muscles in his torso twitching and contracting under his fingers.  John pushes his nose into the base of Sherlock’s curls and inhales deeply.  He feels as if he could get high off this scent, Sherlock’s shampoo and sweat and lingering sex, and that strangely cool scent of his skin that John first noticed that very first day, five years ago.

“You almost done?” John squeezes again.

“Yes, actually,” Sherlock takes one last drag, then bends to crush his cigarette out in the old clay ashtray resting on the outside sill.  He pulls the window closed, latching it, then takes a deep breath and turns in John’s arms.

“Hey,” in the low, blue light, John can see that Sherlock’s eyes are rimmed red, and there’s a faint line of dried tears on his cheeks.  “Hey, Sherlock…

Sherlock smiles slightly and dips his head.  “I’m fine.”  His hands settle on John’s waist above his shorts.

“Sherlock,” John lifts his hand and runs his thumb over the streak of salt on Sherlock’s cheekbone.  “I told you you have to be honest with me…”

Sherlock lifts his head and looks off to the side, over John’s shoulder.  His chin trembles a bit.  He huffs a short breath out his nose and shakes his head slightly, as if he’s trying to even figure out how to be honest.

“Sherlock…”

“I can’t go back,” he says suddenly, dipping his head again.  His curls are an absolute riot, tinted blue in the streetlights.  “I can’t...to what it was before.  Before  _ you.   _ Not now.  Not knowing, and you’re my best friend, and...if it doesn’t work...I  _ can’t _ .”

“Jesus Christ, Sherlock,” John’s heart aches and he pulls Sherlock closer, into a tight hug, guiding Sherlock’s head down to his shoulder.  The fingers of his left hand press into the skin of John’s back.  He wishes he could will every emotion out of his chest into Sherlock’s, to  _ make _ him feel everything he feels, so he’ll never have to doubt or worry again.  “We’ll just have to make sure it does work, then,” John sniffs, eyes suddenly burning.  “Because I can’t either.  I won’t.”   He threads his fingers through Sherlock’s curls and presses against the back of his skull.  “Okay?”

Sherlock nods into John’s neck and sniffs.  “I love you,” he whispers, breath warm and smelling like mint and cigarettes against John’s skin.

“I love you, too, you brilliant, ridiculous bastard,” John purses his lips and presses a kiss where he can reach, which happens to be Sherlock’s ear, chilled from the open window.  “And we’re going to drive each other crazy for a long, long time.”

Sherlock chuckles and straightens a bit in John’s embrace, turning to kiss the side of his head.  They stand like that for a few moments, wrapped together in the dark sitting room of Baker Street.  John’s home.   _ Their  _ home.  

“Sometimes I wonder...if I should have said yes, that first night,” Sherlock takes a deep breath.  “At Angelo’s.  So much nonsense, and pain, and so much wasted time.”

“Maybe,” John clears his throat.  “But that’s how I know we can make this work.  Because of the pain, and the nonsense...it wasn’t necessarily wasted time, Sherlock.  We learned each other, and our limits, and how to love each other, and be patient with each other, and all that pain and nonsense, I think we’re stronger now.  Sherlock.  And now we’re so strong nothing will tear it apart...I can’t remember who said it, but…’we could never learn to be patient or brave, if there were only joy in the world.’”

“Like iron, in a crucible.”

“Sure, if you want to be literal about it.”

“Yes. Ok.  I like that, I think.”  Sherlock suddenly shivers rather violently, reminding John that he just spent who knows how long standing shirtless in front of the open window, in winter.

“Let’s go back to bed, yeah?  Get you under the covers.”

“Alright.”

John unwinds his arms from around Sherlock’s back, but takes hold of his left hand, squeezing and pulling him through the dark flat to the bedroom.

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed my mind and am not going to do an epilogue per se...my idea wouldn't really fit. There will probably be an additional "coda" that can stand alone or fit in this world.


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